Fishermen selling plastic bottles dumped on Sg Tebrau riverbanks to make ends meet

Raay: Volunteers collected about 30 tonnes of rubbish from Sungai Tebrau during a clean-up in 2019.

IN THE 1970s until 1990s, Sungai Tebrau was bountiful with fish and crustaceans.

Sadly today, the 46km waterway has turned into one of the dirtiest and most polluted rivers in Johor.

Fisherman Hamid Yusof, 63, recalled the good old days when fishermen could easily catch fishes like patin, tilapia, belanak and siakap here.

The mangroves along the riverbanks were also breeding grounds for ketam bangkang (mud crabs), ketam renjong (flower crabs) and udang galah (freshwater prawns).

“But now, the river is full of rubbish, especially along the riverbanks during low tide, ’’ he said.

Since 2005, Hamid said the situation had turned from bad to worse due to vast development and its adverse effects on the river.

He said that 10 years ago, there were some 60 fishermen who depended on Sungai Tebrau for their livelihood, but that number was down to only five now.

“Life as a fisherman is hard, and it has become much harder for us now as the river is polluted, ’’ he lamented.

Fellow fisherman Rosli Osman, 58, said that instead of going out to fish, fishermen were collecting plastic bottles on the riverbanks of Sungai Tebrau.

He said it was not worth going out to fish as most of the time they would return empty-handed after spending hours in the river.

“We sell plastic bottles to karung guni (gunny sack) men at 50sen per kilogramme, ’’ he said.

Apart from rubbish polluting the river, the Sungai Tebrau fishermen face another problem –- engines from their boats anchored along the riverbanks get stolen.

“Despite us locking the engines, the thieves still managed to steal them, ’’ said Rosli, noting that nine engines had gone missing so far.

He said it was not cheap to replace the stolen engines, elaborating that a 30-horsepower (hp) engine would cost RM8,000 today, compared to RM5,600 a few years ago, while a 40hp engine had gone up from RM8,000 to RM11,000.

“The thieves can easily sell the engines for anything between RM2,500 and RM5,000 to unsuspecting buyers, ’’ he added.

Fishmonger Raay Richard, 55, said gotong-royong activities were held in 2019 to clear rubbish from Sungai Tebrau’s riverbanks, near the Bayu Puteri area.

He said the three clean-up programmes involving 100 people were organised by NGOs.

“We collected about 30 tonnes of rubbish from the river, ’’ said Raay, who sells fish near Bayu Puteri.

He said more river clean-up activities were supposed to have been organised last year but were postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and movement control order.

Mixed-rice seller Jamal Jusoh, 55, said the rubbish near the Bayu Puteri area came from upstream, including the Pandan wholesale market.

“This has been going on for about 20 years but there is no concrete solution by relevant authorities to address the problem, ’’ he said.

Safe Johor River founder Poh Pai Yip said the amount of rubbish collected from Sungai Tebrau was estimated to be 380 tonnes annually.

“Sungai Tebrau is also contaminated with wastewater coming from upstream sewerage treatment plants with malfunctioning pumps, ’’ he revealed.

He urged Johor assemblymen to be vocal and pressure the state government to immediately address dirty and polluted rivers.

“We need political will and concerted efforts by all stakeholders to rehabilitate and rejuvenate dirty rivers in Johor, ’’ he added.

Under Johor’s Budget 2021, RM3.5mil has been allocated for the Johor rivers sustainability programme, of which RM2mil is for the 1District 1River (1D1S) programme while RM1mil will go towards the Sungai Skudai and Sungai Tebrau sustainability programme.

The balance RM500,000 is for the Sungai Kim Kim rehabilitation programme.