SANDAKAN: What began as a quick gotong-royong by eight people exposed the scale of worsening pollution along the shoreline of Kampung Pukat here.
In just two to three hours on Saturday (July 25), the group collected about 100kg of plastic bottles, which they estimated made up only 20% of those visible along the coast.
Karamunting Community Development Leader Yap Hsiu Min, who joined seven members of the Kampung Pukat Village Development and Security Committee in the clean-up, said that was all the small team could manage at the time.
"There is still much more rubbish left behind," he said when met after the session.
The haul did not include biscuit containers, damaged household items, clothing, food wrappers and other waste scattered along the shoreline.
Kampung Pukat is one of Sandakan's oldest Chinese fishing settlements and a popular stop for tourists seeking seafood and locally made products such as prawn crackers.
Yap said clean-up activities had rarely been carried out this year, allowing rubbish to build up over time.
"The area had become dirtier and dirtier, and the situation had reached a point where it was too serious to ignore, so the committee members and I decided to act immediately," he said.
Yap said it could not be ascertained where all the rubbish had come from, but it was believed to be a mix of waste washed in from nearby islands, coastal communities and water villages along the Sandakan coast.
Some of it was also believed to have come from indiscriminate dumping by residents.
Yap warned that the rubbish could damage Kampung Pukat's image as a tourist destination and affect the living conditions of nearby residents.
He was also concerned that discarded bottles and containers could collect stagnant water and become mosquito breeding grounds, increasing the risk of dengue.
"This is a tourist destination, but this is the condition visitors may see. It does not reflect well on Kampung Pukat or Sandakan," Yap said.
He called on the Sandakan Municipal Council, the People's Volunteer Corps and other relevant agencies to carry out a larger, sustained clean-up and develop a long-term plan to prevent waste from continuing to accumulate.
Yap also urged residents to stop dumping rubbish indiscriminately and to educate children about keeping their surroundings clean.
