SIBU, July 2: Sibu Municipal Council (SMC) will not lift its No Plastic Straw policy, despite requests from the public especially since the Movement Control Order (MCO) was enforced on March 18.
Its deputy chairperson for Public Health, Councillor Jenny Ting said due to Covid-19 pandemic, the public had requested the reinstatement of plastic straws for health reasons.
“During March when MCO was enforced, there was a lot of hoo-ha saying that we should go back to plastic straws. From SMC’s viewpoint, we will be firm and continue to monitor that there will be no plastic straw as it is one of our efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19,” she said.
Ting said if the public felt that a particular coffeeshop was not clean, they should avoid going there.
She added that since the council introduced the policy in January this year, it had brought tremendous benefits to the conservation of the environment.
“Due to the wide usage of plastic straw, we have decided to stop it and replace it with paper straw at all eatery outlets in January. We can see that our policy has positive effect to the environment and we will continue with it,” she said.
The council made it mandatory for eating outlets to not give out plastic straws. Those caught will either have their business licenses cancelled or revoked.
She also advised the public to bring their own straws, whether they were paper or aluminium if eatery outlets did not provide them.—DayakDaily
