Shoppers to pay 20 sen for each plastic bag on Saturdays

THE STAR

PETALING JAYA: Shoppers throughout the country will now have to pay 20 sen for each plastic bag when they shop at hypermarkets, supermarkets and Petronas service stations on Saturdays.The move, which is already in force in Selangor and introduced to reduce the eight billion plastic bags used each year in Malaysia, caught many shoppers by surprise.

Other developments:

> The sum charged will go to a special fund which will benefit the environment and community;

> Shoppers in Penang will have to pay for their bags in these outlets every day; and

> Plastic industry players in Penang have expressed unhappiness, vowing to distribute 30,000 free bags in defiance of the move.

FAKTA:

• Dianggarkan sebanyak 500 billion bag plastik digunakan setiap tahun di seluruh dunia… pada kadar sejuta helai seminit.

• Bag plastik mengambil masa lebih kurang 500 tahun untuk reput secara semula jadi.

• secara purata setiap orang menggunakan 296 helai bag plastik bagi 27 juta penduduk Malaysia.Jika di Malaysia kita menggunakan sebanyak 8 billion bag plastik setahun.

• Kemanakah bag plastic ini pergi?. Di bakar, di tanam, di gunakan semula, di makan haiwan atau di buang merata-rata…
• Pengurangan bag plastic juga akan mengurangkan pengeluaran CO2. Bag plastik menggunakan minyak sebagai bahan asas. Jika kita mampu mengurangkan 25% daripada 8 billion bag plastic ini, kita akan mengurangkan pengeluaran gas CO2 sebanyak 63 Tan setahun,; bersamaan dengan pengurangan sebanyak 18000 kereta di jalan raya. (Sumber: The Christian Science Monitor 2007)

A brand new year, but same old Malaysian habit

A brand new year, but same old Malaysian habit

Lorry with heavy white smoke

While driving to Kuantan Damansara, I met this incident, which created potential major traffic accident. I cannot saw even the end of engine bonnet and navigated by assuming that line is straight. The lorry produced very heavy white smoke, and most of the car travelling more than 70kmh. Based on internet it happened due to;

"White smoke is normally ‘steam’ which means water is vapourising! If it is white ‘smoke’ then it could be as a result of low engine temperature. White Smoke will smell of unburned diesel - White ‘Steam’ will not!"

In this case, we've smell the unburned diesel. Luckily no accident happened.

60 tan sampah cemari sungai di Selangor dan Kuala Lumpur setahun

PETALING JAY: Dalam setahun, sungai-sungai di Selangor dan Kuala Lumpur dicemari kira-kira 60 tan sampah-sarap, mengakibatkan kawasan perangkap sampah kelihatan seolah-olah permukaan tanah.

Bercakap kepada pemberita selepas merasmikan Projek Pemulihan Sungai Way "Sungai Amanah Alam" di sini hari ini, Ong berkata keadaan itu tidak akan berlaku sekiranya masyarakat mengamalkan tabiat membuang sampah yang baik.

"Negara kita masih memerlukan perangkap sampah untuk menahan sampah sarap namun kita berharap dalam tempoh lima hingga 10 tahun lagi jumlah sampah yang terperangkap dapat dikurangkan," katanya.

Beliau berkata, sebanyak RM150 juta diperlukan JPS untuk membersihkan sungai di seluruh negara daripada pencemaran sampah.

"Setakat ini kita (JPS) masih belum dapat peruntukan ini lagi, ia sedang dikaji dan dipertimbangkan oleh Kementerian Sumber Asli dan Alam Sekitar," katanya.

Sementara itu, Pengerusi Yayasan GAB Tan Sri Saw Huat Lye berkata, masyarakat perlu menyokong usaha JPS untuk memastikan sungai tidak dicemari sampah.

Katanya, walaupun secara teknikalnya, JPS boleh memasang perangkap sampah di sungai-sungai dan mengutip puluhan tan sampah sebulan, langkah itu tidak akan menyelesaikan masalah kerana orang ramai akan tetap membuang sampah di sungai.

Beliau berkata, orang ramai perlu dididik untuk menghargai sungai sebagai aset alam sekitar negara. GAB ialah penaja utama dan penaung Projek Pemulihan Sungai Way "Sungai Amanah Alam".-Bernama 2010/07/18

Polluted River... think again.

The World's Most Polluted River

West Java , Indonesia:

One of the world's most polluted rivers, the Citarum in Indonesia, is to get a $500m (£343m) clean up. It is hoped the effort, backed by a loan from the Asian Development Bank, will improve the lives of millions of people.

The loan package will be delivered over the next 15 years, and will support sanitation projects and construction of waste treatment plants in the river basin to provide safe water supply to poor families who use the polluted river for fishing, bathing and laundry.

Workers in Jakarta clean piles of rubbish along the river twice a week to minimise flooding in the city ahead of the rainy season.

It is hoped the clean up will allow the cultivation of an additional 61,700 acres (25,000 hectares) of rice paddy, benefiting 25,000 farming families.

The river management programme also aims to supply water to 200,000 more households in Jakarta. It will ultimately increase Jakarta's water supply by 2.5% yearly, and benefit millions by resolving critical water shortages in Bandung, Indonesia's fourth largest city.

:source unknown

Water pollution kills millions of children

Waste water kills millions of children, pollutes sea

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Human beings are flushing millions of tonnes of solid waste into rivers and oceans every day, poisoning marine life and spreading diseases that kill millions of children annually, the U.N. said on Monday.

"The sheer scale of dirty water means more people now die from contaminated and polluted water than from all forms of violence including wars," the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said.

Boys sit in front of a polluted canal in Jakarta March 21, 2010 Human beings are flushing millions of tonnes of solid waste into rivers and oceans every day, poisoning marine life and spreading diseases that kill millions of children annually, the U.N. said on Monday. (REUTERS/Supri)

In a report entitled "Sick Water" for World Water Day, UNEP said the two million tonnes of waste, which contaminates over two billion tonnes of water daily, had left huge "dead zones" that choke coral reefs and fish.

It consists mostly of sewage, industrial pollution, pesticides from agriculture and animal waste.

The report said a lack of clean water was killing 1.8 million children under five every year. Much of the waste came from developing countries, which dump 90 percent of their wastewater untreated.

Diarrhoea, mostly from dirty water, kills around 2.2 million people a year, it said, and "over half the world's hospital beds are occupied with people suffering from illnesses linked with contaminated water."

The report recommends water recycling systems and multi-million or multi-billion dollar water sewage treatment works".

It also suggests protecting wetlands, which act as natural waste processors, and saving animal waste to use as fertilizer.

"If the world is to ... survive on a planet of six billion people heading to over nine billion by 2050, we need to get smarter about how we manage wastewaters," said UNEP director Achim Steiner. "Wastewater is quite literally killing people."

(Reporting by Tim Cocks; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Copyright © 2010 Reuters @ thestar.com.my

Minyak hitam enjin kereta

• Adalah rutin bagi pengguna kereta menukar minyak hitam atau minyak enjin bagi setiap 3000, 5000, 7000 atau 10000 km perjalanan.
• Nak senang tukar di workshop.
• Mekanik akan menukar secara membuka "draining plug" di bawah tangki minyak pelincir atau dengan cara menggunakan pump vacumm.
• Ada sesetengah pengguna lebih yakin menukar nya sendiri dan ia bukan lah kerja yang sesukar mana.
• Bagaimanapun sekiranya kita menukar minyak hitam ini secara sendiri di rumah; selain faktor keselamatan, faktor alam sekitar juga perlu di ambil kira.
• Jangan lah minyak hitam yang telah di gunakan itu di buang kedalam longkang atau di atas mana-mana tanah di sekitar rumah.
• Gunakan tong kosong untuk menyimpan nya dan hantar lah ke mana mana workshop apabila telah penuh.
• Workshop kereta biasanya akan mengumpul minyak hitam yang telah di gunakan ini untuk di kitar semula.

Taman Rekreasi dan Mini Zoo Kemaman

My family had been visiting the Kemaman Mini Zoo and recreational park during last weekend. Congratulations to the state government who has successfully equipped this area with another public “entertainment” facility. The simplified map as shown below. However, Malaysian still Malaysian… despite the very nice facility we still simply throwing the rubbish everywhere. Yes we are paying RM 5 per entry, but still the cleanliness is everybody responsibility. Malaysians! Wake-up.

Bangkok beats London in carbon pollution

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Residents of the Thai capital produce as much carbon pollution as New Yorkers and more than Londoners, a U.N.-backed study released on Thursday shows.
The report, "Bangkok: Assessment Report on Climate Change 2009", underscores the city's carbon-intensive habits but also highlights the threat to Bangkok from rising seas caused by global warming.
A man walks past cars during rush-hour traffic in Bangkok in this May 4, 2007 file photo. Residents of the Thai capital produce as much carbon pollution as New Yorkers and more than Londoners, a U.N.-backed study released on Thursday shows. (REUTERS/Adrees Latif/Files)

"In per-capita terms, Bangkok was responsible for producing 7.1 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per annum in 2007," said the report by the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority and the Bangkok-based Green Leaf Foundation, with support from the United Nations Environment Programme.

That was the same level of emissions produced by New Yorkers in 2007. Londoners produced 5.9 tonnes per capita.

Transport and electricity generation were the main sources of greenhouse gases in Bangkok, the report said.
The paper based its calculations on the city's official population of six million but up to twice that number are believed to live in the city, many of them seasonal workers from the countryside.

Low-lying Bangkok is near the mouth of the Chao Phraya River and is already prone to flooding. In future, more days above 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) were expected, along with a jump in cases of malaria and other diseases, the report said.
The maximum forecast temperature in Bangkok on Wednesday is 38 deg C, the Thai Meteorological Department said.
"The impacts of greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting climate change on Bangkok are likely to be quite severe," said the report.
It said just over half the city would be affected by floods if the mean sea level were to rise by 50 centimetres (20 inches), and 72 per cent of the city would be affected if the mean sea level were to rise by one metre.
Land subsidence caused by over-pumping of ground water was already a major problem, along with contamination of water supplies, and both were expected to get worse as the city's population grows, it added.
The city's administration has launched a campaign to cut emissions by 15 percent by 2012 by expanding mass transit, promote renewable energy, expand parklands and improve energy efficiency.
Copyright © 2008 Reuters

Kebersihan Pantai#2 - Pantai Paka Terengganu

   

Alhamdulillah, pihak korporat, kontraktor dan bihak berkuasa tempatan telah melakukan kerja-kerja perbersihan pantai kuala Paka, Dungun, Terengganu pada pagi tadi.

1. Pantai ini adalah pantai yang menjadi tempat kediaman pada nelayan tempatan. 
2. Terdapat chalet bagi kemudahan pelancong luar.
3. Pantai nya menarik dan nyaman walaupun kurang sesuai untuk mandi manda kerana keadaan ombak nya yang agak kuat.
4. Pada am nya sampah-sampah yang terdapat di situ adalah sampah organic.
5. Yang bukan organic kebanyakkan nya adalah bekas makanan dan botol minuman.
6. Menurut pegawai Majlis Pembandaran Dungun, lebih RM 5 Juta di belanja kan setahun bagi kerja-kerja yang melibatkan pembersihan sampah.
7. Jika semua kita mempunyai kesedaran tentang pembuangan sampah di tempat yang betul. RM 5 juta dapat di selamatkan.
8. Menurut kata Menteri Besar Terengganu (menerusi siaran radio Trg FM @0745hrs), kerajaan negeri membelanjakan RM 40 juta setahun, bagi kerja-kerja pembersihan dan pengindahan di negeri ini.
9. Jika kita semua ada kesedaran, pasti nya duit tersebut dapat di salurkan bagi kemudahan kesihatan dan keselamatan yang lain.
10. Sampah adalah hasil dari diri kita..
11. Jangan lah Sampah dijadikan sebagai kenangan generasi hadapan. Kerana nanti mereka akan menganggap kita sebagai SAMPAH tua...