By TP Lim
Plastic bags are very useful things! They are great for carrying shopping home, they make great rubbish bags, and they are FREE! I also need them for picking up my doggies’ poopies when we go for walks.
Yet, I am already convinced of the importance of reducing the use of plastic bags in Malaysia. Here’s an extra reason in the Malaysian context – they choke up our drainage systems and cause floods. Due to the non-stop developing of our nation (how is it that they never ask us whether we want to slow down our development in exchange for keeping our green lungs?), vast numbers of trees (we are talking millions here!) are being chopped down every month to make way for development of housing estates (ironically, often touted as eco-friendly GREEN environments by virtue of adding some landscaping to replace the 100 year old forests being destroyed ) and shopping malls (oooh, we love them! More plastic bags!).
Without the roots of the trees to soak up the rain water, the water just runs over the conrete/tar floors and into the drains. These drains were never built to cope with that level of water, and they over flow BIG TIME! Have you noticed the roads flooding whenever there is heavy rain. We are so used to seeing them that we think that it is normal. IT IS NOT NORMAL for drains to over flow! IT IS NOT NORMAL for drains to over flow! Ok, you get the point.
With plastic bags choking up the drains (you only need to look into any monsoon drains to confirm this fact), the flooding problem becomes even more acute.
If we continue to pile on the plastic bags into the drains (they take hundreds of years to disintegrate; so you are effectively choking up the drains for your great grand children as well), you can bet your bottom dollar that the day will come when the flood water will start entering your house too! And think of all that mad traffic jams caused by flooding!
So please join www.projectdailymillion.com and be counted as one of the 1 million malaysians who pledge to reduce/reuse/recycle at least one plastic bag per day. Don’t be a computer activist! Do something! When we all do our little bit, we save one million bags each day! 365 million bags per year! Imagine all those bags in the drains!
Carry your own re-usable bags everywhere you go… sure beats trying to sweep flood water out of your front door or being stuck in yet another traffic jam caused by flooding.
We all get back what we give. Malaysia needs you to do your part now. Thank you Malaysians!
