A mall holds dozens of tenants, and each one makes its own waste. Each type of waste kept apart, such as cardboard or food, is called a waste stream. Each tenant can have its own collector, so nobody holds one waste figure for the building. You do not have to tear up the tenant contracts to get one. Put every pickup on one record, with a photo, a timestamp and the weight. Then one report covers the whole property.
Two malls show what one shared record changes
Sunway Big Box Mall is a 500,000 sq ft retail complex in Johor. Its four refuse chambers, the rooms where its bins wait for pickup, ran on paper chits and phone calls. Five chambers now report into one dashboard: the four general-waste chambers plus the recycling chamber. Tonnage and activity are logged for each one. On-time collection rose from 81% to 95% between April and June 2026, as fixed-schedule pickups replaced ad-hoc exchange trips.
At M3 Shopping Mall, every waste request is answered within 24 hours. Complaints to the previous vendor sat for two or three days. Every collection is now logged with a time and a photo, so the mall can show what happened.
Both started on paper, with no shared view of what was collected.
Per-tenant collection and centralised service solve different problems
A mall usually runs one of two models, or a mix of both. Check which one you have.
| Per-tenant collection | Centralised service | |
|---|---|---|
| Who appoints the collector | Each tenant, separately | The property, on one contract |
| Waste figure for the property | None: split across tenants' invoices | One record of every pickup |
| Loading dock | Each tenant on its own schedule | One managed schedule |
| Cardboard | Each tenant's to arrange | Kept apart at the dock, rebate shared |
| Report for the board or REIT | Built by hand from invoices | One report from one record |
| Who answers for a missed pickup | Many contractors | One team |
Per-tenant collection spreads the cost across tenants and keeps management out of it. Centralised service is simpler to run, but only if the provider shows you weight and cost per tenant and per waste type. A flat monthly charge hides both.
We work with either model, in two ways.
Software only. GarGeon Connect is our online portal that logs every pickup's weight, time and photo. It sits on top of the collectors your tenants already use. Their pickups go onto one dashboard. You get one view and one report for the property, even mid-contract, and nothing has to be renegotiated.
Software plus collection. We run collection through licensed partner collectors in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Johor. Cardboard is kept apart for a rebate share. A rebate is your share of what recyclers pay for your separated recyclables. You get one invoice, with cost split per tenant and per waste type.
You can start with the first and move collection to us tenant by tenant, as each contract comes up for renewal. When one partner runs every tenant's collection on one contract, that is total waste management.
A mall's waste records sit with dozens of separate collectors
The anchor store, the fashion floor, the kiosks and the food court each produce different waste, on different days. Where each tenant appoints its own collector, a mall can have as many contractors as it has tenants.
Management runs the common areas, but it does not hold the tenants' records. And an invoice that counts bins cannot be added to one that counts kilograms.
If your owner is a listed REIT, it has a sustainability report to fill. GRI, the Global Reporting Initiative, publishes a common rulebook for sustainability reports. The GRI waste standard and Bursa's reporting guide both ask for waste figures by weight.
The licence to check depends on the state. Act 672 is Malaysia's solid waste law, and SWCorp enforces it in eight states and territories. In an Act 672 state, such as Kuala Lumpur or Johor, each collector needs a SWCorp licence. In Selangor, local councils and KDEB Waste Management, the state's waste company, still run solid waste today. An extension of Act 672 to Selangor was announced on 29 July 2026. No start date has been published, so check with your local council there.
Our guide to waste management in Malaysia covers the rules and costs beyond retail. Our office waste guide covers multi-tenant towers.
Cardboard earns a rebate only if it stays clean and apart at the dock
Stock arrives boxed and gets unpacked onto the shop floor. The boxes pile up at the back, with the shrink wrap and pallet film.
Clean cardboard has a price. Our indicative range for clean, separated cardboard is RM0.20–0.35 a kilogram. That is a range, not a quote. What you are paid depends on volume, how clean each pickup is, and how far the recycler has to travel. Our recycling rebate guide gives the range for each material.
Cardboard crushed into the general bin loses twice. It earns no rebate, and it is charged as general waste. On a regular collection contract, disposal is charged by weight, from RM95.50 a tonne. That is the rate our partner collectors are charged, passed on at cost.
So separate it at source. Pull the cardboard out at the dock, before it meets wet or food-soiled waste, and keep it dry. Where the volume justifies one, a baler presses it into bales that take less space. Our cardboard recycling guide shows how to work out what your cartons earn.
Our Recycle Solutions collection is built around this. Recyclables are kept apart at source and sent for recycling, and the rebate is shared with you. The general waste that remains still goes to landfill, through a licensed collector, with a record of every pickup.
A food court needs its own bins and its own collection times
Wet food waste is heavy, and it spoils what it touches. One bag of food-soiled cardboard can downgrade all the clean cardboard with it.
So run the food court as its own operation. Give it lidded bins. Collect often enough that nothing sits over a weekend. Keep its waste away from the dry cardboard from the retail floors.
Used cooking oil is a recyclable in its own right. Store it in sealed containers for collection. It should never go down a drain or into a general bin.
One thing to be plain about: we arrange food waste collection and keep the records, but we do not operate composting. Our food waste guide sets out the options.
The loading dock needs one schedule and a record of every pickup
Every type of waste in a mall ends up at the back-of-house loading dock. Two things decide how it runs.
- Pickup times that fit trading hours. Collect when the dock is clear of deliveries, and before overflow reaches the places customers walk.
- One schedule, checked against what happened. When each tenant hauls waste on its own timing, nobody runs the space. Match every scheduled pickup to the logged one, so a miss shows in the record before it shows as overflow.
A mall-wide waste contract needs three clauses of its own
Put these in writing when you consolidate waste across a retail property.
- Weight and cost per tenant and per waste type. A flat monthly rate across the property lets the heavy tenants hide in the average.
- A share of the rebate on cardboard. Retail packaging has resale value. The contract should return a share of it to you.
- Separate handling for the food court and used cooking oil. Set the collection frequency to match how hard the food court runs.
The clauses every multi-site contract needs, from weighed pickups to a named disposal site, are in our guide to waste management across multiple sites. If you run a chain with outlets in several malls, see our waste services for retail.
If you run a mall or a retail estate, ask one question. Can you say, from one place, what this property threw away and what it recycled? If not, start there. Tell us your property and the collectors working on it today. We'll show you one dashboard and one property-wide report, and where your cardboard is going. Book a consultation to get started.
