Volunteers gathering collected rubbish for disposal after the three-hour scour of the forest park in Petaling Jaya. — Photos: YAP CHEE HONG/The Star
COMMUNITY sports club Gasing Rangers has gone beyond hiking Bukit Gasing to clear its trails and surrounding area.
The club’s gotong-royong activity gathered more than 150 volunteers, both members and non-members, who cleaned up an area of about 8km near the popular forest park in Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
Gasing Rangers president VS Vel Kumar said the initiative was to preserve the natural beauty of Bukit Gasing by removing rubbish left behind.
“We want to promote environmental conservation by engaging the community.”
The gotong-royong was held in collaboration with Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) and Selangor Department of Environment (DOE).
Before flagging off the event, Petaling Jaya MP Lee Chean Chung announced an allocation of RM3,000 for Gasing Rangers’ club activities including the gotong-royong expenses.
The volunteers were split into groups to clean up the neighbourhood while those with hiking experience were sent to collect rubbish on forest trails.
Volunteers happy to help clear rubbish around Bukit Gasing.
For nearly three hours, the volunteers armed with rubbish bags and litter pickers scoured the area for discarded items, ending up with over 450kg of rubbish.
Gasing Rangers also awarded 15 members of the Bukit Gasing community for their achievements in scaling mountains around the world including Mount Kinabalu and Mount Everest.
The sports club had also reached out to MBPJ for facility upgrades to accommodate the growing number of visitors to Bukit Gasing’s hiking area.
Present at the event were Bukit Gasing state assemblyman Rajiv Rishyakaran, Petaling Jaya deputy mayor Aznan Hassan, MBPJ councillor Terence Tan, Selangor DOE environmental control officer Syakirin Zahar, Lotus Group founder and group chief executive officer Tan Sri R. Doraisingam Pillai and India Gate Restaurant representative Priyanka Saravanan.
