Foreign ‘invasion’ of rubbish a bane to isle’s geoparks

1 Trainee policeman from Langkawi Police Academy hauling bags ofrubbish from the boats to shore.2 Volunteer Niphaporn Puapan Udom, (left) with her team members showing the rubbish that they scooped up from the sea during the Langkawi Mangrove Cleanup at Kilim Geopark in Langkawi, Kedah.3 A patricipant scooping up rubbish at the riverbank of Kilim Geopark.4 A shoe was among the flotsam fished out at the riverbank. — Photos: G. C. TAN/The Star

SHAMPOO bottles with all-Chinese labels, drink containers and food wrappers with Thai inscriptions, instant noodle polystyrene cups with cooking instructions in Indonesian. These are some of the flotsam that mars the beauty of Langkawi’s geoparks.

Sea currents owing to the archipelago’s location between the Straits of Malacca and the Andaman Sea cause the parks to be the unfortunate recipients of rubbish dumped into the sea by neighbouring countries.