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Malaysian actress Maya Karin highlights river overflowing with trash, JPS reminds public to keep rivers clean

 

The Department of Irrigation and Drainage has showcased before and after photos of the Kolam Delima in a social media post last Tuesday. — Pictures courtesy of Facebook/ JPSMalaysia
The Department of Irrigation and Drainage has showcased before and after photos of the Kolam Delima in a social media post last Tuesday. — Pictures courtesy of Facebook/ JPSMalaysia

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 18 — Actress Maya Karin recently took to her social media accounts to highlight the problem of a river overflowing with trash in Kuala Lumpur.

The photos were reposted by the Department of Irrigation and Drainage (JPS) along with additional images of another river overflowing with more garbage as a result from the flood and heavy rain last week.

 

 

Tahun lepas @maya_karin dah tengok keadaan sungai yang penuh dengan sampah, tahun ni cuba tengok sungai/kolam takungan...

Posted by Jabatan Pengairan dan Saliran Malaysia - Dept. of Irrigation and Drainage on Tuesday, September 15, 2020

According to the JPS Facebook post, the photograph uploaded by Maya Karin was from last year, and they had taken the opportunity to share more images of the similar problem in another location in the city to serve as a reminder to the public to take the issue more seriously in the future.

“Take a look at the types of garbage that you see here, is it natural waste or is it from man-made waste?

“When are we going to change this sort of behaviour?” JPS said in their Facebook post.

According to JPS River Basin Management Division director Md Khairi Selamat, the photos uploaded by JPS were taken at the Kolam Delima on September 12.

He said Kolam Delima is connected to the Jinjang river stream and the Keroh diversion stream where the accumulation of garbage often accumulation of garbage often occurs with heavy rains and floods.

“The garbage is carried by river currents upstream from the river that’s connected to drainages in residential areas.

“Some of it also comes directly from the surface brought by the rain straight into the river,” Khairi told Malay Mail adding that most of the trash found were plastic bottles.

However, in the same post, JPS has also added a photo which was taken just a day after the initial image was taken showing the Kolam Delima all cleaned up.

“As shown in the picture, one of our cleaning methods is by dispatching a cleaning crew on a sampan (canoe) to manually collect the garbage and where it will then be disposed properly,” he said.

Khairi said that JPS conducts cleaning routines at all of their log booms as often as three times per week.

He said, among the initiatives taken by JPS to keep rivers cleaninclude their Public Outreach Programme which is the River of Life programme that aims to educate the public about loving and keeping our rivers clean.

The River of Life programme also aims to train the public not to throw trash into the river and at the same time to cultivate a sense of “ownership’” of our rivers.

Khairi suggested that local councils take necessary legal action as well as revamp methods of collecting and disposing of garbage.

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