Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government Vol. 27, No. 1, 2021 P-ISSN: 2204-1990; E-ISSN: 1323-6903 https://cibg.org.au/ 4483 Approaches to Effective Management in Reducing Plastic Waste in Malaysia from the Socio-Legal Aspect Hanim Kamaruddin 1 , Nur Insyirah Bt Jasri 2 , Munirah binti Mohamed Halid 3 , Nur Wafaa Azreen binti Mohd 4 , Nur Hasyazira Binti Hashim 5 , Nur Najwa Athirah bt Mohamed Nawawi 6 & Sahain Nada Puthucheary 7 1 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, hanim@ukm.edu.my 2 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Syirah.jasri2103@gmail.com 3 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia a163235@siswa.ukm.edu.my 4 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia A164772@siswa.ukm.edu.my 5 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia nur5974789@gmail.com 6 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia a164060@siswa.ukm.edu.my 7 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia sahainnada2104@gmail.com Abstract Plastic waste pollution is a major problem in Malaysia as the country ranks among the top ten countries with mismanaged plastic waste in the world. Malaysia has produced significant amount of plastic waste where most are washed into the oceans, dumped at landfills, burnt, and a fraction being recycled. This situation continuously affects human health and environment especially in marine waters. Existing waste management practices lack in handling large amount of plastic waste from household and businesses as there is no uniform approach within Malaysia to address the use of plastic waste. This paper reviews and analyses existing laws and social practice in relation to reducing plastic waste in Malaysia. It concludes that initiatives by the Malaysian government to reduce plastic waste is still within preliminary stages, and substantive legal approach remains absent. Keywords: plastic; Malaysia; law; management; waste 1. INTRODUCTION The increasing number of plastic usage remains essential in day-to-day activities (Rodriguez, 2019) as it is has assimilated into our daily lives and regarded as conveniently accessible in many forms. Since the plastic industry began, annual global plastic production has rose exponentially from 1.5 million metric tons in 1950 to 348 billion metric tons in 2017 (Wang, 2020). Cumulatively, plastic production has reached 8.3 billion metric tons worldwide, with a foreseeable global increase expected by the year 2050 (Parker, 2018) where packaged products influence the use of plastic (Ritchie et.al 2018).