MIRI, September 15: The Miri International Coastal and World Clean-up Day held here this morning yielded two scenarios — one good and one bad.
The heartwarming one is that 1,298 individuals willingly forgo their Saturday’s rest to get up early and get dirty by picking up rubbish from Miri Marina Beach from as early as 7am.
The ugly side of the clean-up is that 8,817.4kg of garbage, most of them plastic wastes, was collected from the beach. This is a record of sorts because the previous one was slightly less than 3,000kg. In short, it means Miri Marina Beach was very dirty, possibly because many who patronise the area have been very irresponsible.
Anyway, Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK) Sains Miri emerged as the highest waste collector in the event with 1,288.2kg trash collected. This is followed by Go Kleen with 1,207.2kg and SMK Lutong with 804.1kg.
Amongst those present were Miri mayor Adam Yii, Piasau assemblyman Datuk Sebastian Ting and Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) Miri branch chairman Iqbal Abdollah.
The Miri International Coastal and World Clean-up Day was a joint collaboration between Malaysian Nature Society Miri Branch (MNS Miri), Miri Local Agenda 21 (LA21), Miri City Council (MCC), JCI Lutong, JCI Riam, Northern Sarawak Journalists Association (NSJA), Pustaka Negeri Sarawak (Miri) and Coco Cabana.
The campaign commemorates International Coastal Clean-Up, which debuted more than 30 years ago. On Sept 15 every year, communities around the world rally together with the common goal of clearing up trash that litter their coastline. — DayakDaily
