Litter in rivers proof environmental awareness still low, says Johor exco

ISKANDAR PUTERI: The level of awareness in the public about keeping the environment clean is still low, despite the efforts made by the Johor State Government to raise awareness about the matter, says Johor exco K. Raven Kumar.

The Johor tourism, environment, heritage, and culture committee chairman added that this is based on the Drainage and Irrigation Department's (DID) and Iskandar Puteri City Council's (MBIP) report of collecting between 80 and 100 tonnes of trash every month from Sungai Skudai and Sungai Tebrau.

"The Johor Mentri Besar Datuk Onn Hafiz Ghazi has introduced the Johor Bersih initiative under the Greater JB agenda to beef up our effort in cleaning and protecting our environment.

"But despite this, we still collect close to 100 tonnes of trash from these two rivers, which is a very large amount, and we even found broken TV’s and refrigerators thrown into the river," he said.

He said this when met by reporters after witnessing the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signing ceremony between Port of Tanjung Pelepas (PTP) Sdn Bhd, SWM Environment Sdn Bhd, and Johor National Park Corporation at Wisma PTP, here, on Tuesday (Feb 21).

Raven added that the government's main focus right now is conducting more engagement programmes with the public in the hope that it would create an impact that would stop this issue in the long run.

"We are targeting families and the younger generations to be part of this effort because we cannot continue to collect trash while some members of the public continue to throw trash away.

"It would be pointless to continue talking about environmental sustainability or introducing new policies if we cannot raise the level of awareness among the people," he said, adding that the government cannot work alone on this matter.