What we throw into drains ends up in rivers

I REFER to The Star article titled “Working 10 hours daily to keep water filth-free” that was published on Sept 20 (online at bit.ly/star_dirty).

The cleaning of our filthy rivers littered daily with thousands of plastic bottles, plastic bags, Styro-foam boxes and even chairs, refrigerators, mattresses and carcasses(!) as reported is a Sisyphean task indeed. We must eliminate the problem at the source – and the source is us humans.

We are the ones that throw rubbish into drains or dump it along roads, kerbs, parks and trails, and it all gets washed down into rivers. Some even throw furniture or carcasses into rivers to save the bother or payment of getting rid of it in the proper and more hygienic manner, in a proper dumpsite.

Some of the rubbish not caught by booms along rivers ends up in the seas. The seas then return a lot of it onto beaches necessitating beach cleanups like on World Cleanup Day on Sept 19.

Apart from being a stomach- wrenching sight, the rubbish is a cause of floods in urban areas and along rivers. It also destroys the wild and aquatic life along and in the rivers. Where rivers were once a source of life for all manner of flora and fauna, most life in and along major Malaysian rivers now desperately struggle to survive.

And we are now taking in some of what we have put out. Plastic, polystyrene, foul and toxic effluents – and now facemasks thrown indiscriminately about – end up in rivers from which we draw our potable water. We end up ingesting microparticles and chemicals that may not be have been completely eliminated by water treatment plants when we drink and cook with our tap water.

Keep our drains, roads and kerbs clear of rubbish. Dispose of rubbish properly – and as for plastic, use much less of it.

Much of how healthy and well we live is dependent on what goes into our drains. To continue to use drains and rivers for dumping waste and rubbish is to continue to endanger our own health and environment.

KOO WEE HON , Petaling Jaya