A love for travel inspired a teacher to introduce a “recycling passport” to get pupils at his primary school in Johor excited about sustainable practices.
SK Taman Bukit Indah teacher Muhammad Syakirin Ariffin said he came up with the idea about two years ago.
“When I proposed this idea to the headmaster, he was supportive and the project kicked off on Jan 1 last year.
“Since I enjoy travelling, I decided to design rubber stamps that look like the ones used in our passports,” he told StarMetro.
The Johor Baru school set every Tuesday as recycling day during which pupils can exchange recyclable items for stamps.
“They will be rewarded upon accumulating a certain number of stamps.
“We used this opportunity to educate them on the importance of recycling and doing our part for the environment.
“The project also caught the attention of Iskandar Puteri City Council and the school received RM10,000 from MBIP’s Low-Carbon Community Grant programme last year,” he said.
Muhammad Syakirin, who is also the school’s sustainability coordinator said the school’s efforts started after it was invited to the 2022 Iskandar Puteri Low-Carbon Carnival which featured many green activities.
“I was impressed by exhibitions that revolved around sustainability and wanted our school to be one of the exhibitors the following year.
“The school began farming vegetables such as brinjal, spinach, tomato and herbs, and even started making our own compost from used coffee grounds,” he said.
In 2023, SK Taman Bukit Indah was one of the carnival exhibitors and won RM500 for being the best booth.
This year, the school received another MBIP grant worth RM33,000 to digitalise its recycling passport project.
“We decided to move it online to reduce paper usage.
“By using an app, we can easily track the amount of items recycled and the impact on the environment,” said Muhammad Syakirin.
The app took about three months to develop with the help of parents.
The school is expected to start using the app early next year.
Year Six pupil Samera Kaur said the project was a starting point for her to learn about issues such as climate change and pollution.
“I usually collect used papers from my house to recycle at school and I also learned to be more mindful about wasting paper when I write notes for lessons.
“My school also took part in Iskandar Malaysia Ecolife Challenge during which we learned how to reduce carbon emissions and waste,” she said.
MBIP Town and Country Planning officer Mohamad Hassan Kadir said due to its achievements, SK Taman Bukit Indah was chosen as a school icon in this year’s Low-Carbon Carnival.
He said a total of RM500,000 was disbursed to fund 23 projects under the Low-Carbon Community Grant programme this year.
“This is our fourth year giving out these grants.
“So far, we have funded 94 projects with a total value of RM1.61mil,” Mohamad Hassan added.
