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Hmm… September 11, 2009

Posted by jessieloi in go green.
2 comments

I came upon this interesting fact when studying.

5th December 2005:

500 drums of toxic waste were dumped near a residential area and a golf course in Kelana Jaya.

The MB of S’gor gave the Kuala S’gor district 1 week to clear of the 500 drums. The district officers activitated the district natural disaster action comittee to tackle this problem.

They hired Kualiti Alam (M) Sdn Bhd, the sole operator dealing with scheduled waste. Kualiti Alam quoted:

RM 2 million for clearing the drums;

RM 2 million to repack;

RM 8 million for disposal at Bukit Nenas Scheduled waste treatment plant, the one and only fully equipped treatment plant in Malaysia.

Grand total: RM 12 million.

However!…

Under the EQA 1974, Section 34(b), (in short, under the law lah) illegal dumping carries a maximum fine of RM 500,000 or 5 years jail, or both.

We need better laws than this.

Kampar, Conference and Me October 26, 2008

Posted by jessieloi in go green, photos, university.
9 comments

Hello! A picture post with alot of words.

It’s about my trip to Kampar, the Environmental Conference and Me because this is my blog and I like to talk about me.

Remember that week when I said I was damn busy? It was last week only lah actually. On the 16th Nov which was a Thursday I went on a study trip to Kampar. I had to be at the bus stop at 6.15 AM. Yes, A.M. morning. pagi.

I had to wake up at 5.30 A.M. morning. pagi. I slept at 4.40 AM. T__T I am having difficulty sleeping nowadays but let me cerita bout that some other day.

So Kampar. To prove that is was at 6.15 AM, well the picture below was taken that morning before the sunrise.


#1. 6.15 am. Not a soul in sight except for a bunch of us who were going for the trip.


#2. The sun peeking out from the horizon. Sunset or sunrise? I love both! Love the colours in the sky.

The journey to Kampar takes around 3 hours, so we had the chance to nap first BUT the coordinators, who are my seniors, gave us briefings and what not and prevented us from sleeping haha. The trip to Kampar was to visit the Majlis Daerah Kinta Selatan, MDKS (soon to be Majlis Daerah Kampar, MDK).

MDKS is currently running a recycling program in its area. We were there to share the projects we have done in USM and vice versa. Their recycling program was impressive really. MDKS was committed to making this program work. Helped by a voluntary based advisor from the Japan International Cooperation Agency, JICA they carry out various programs to create awareness and promote the 3R – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

Funny thing though. During Ms Yume Mori’s (the JICA volunteer) presentation, she mentioned that JICA volunteers were at 4 places in Malaysia. One of them being our very own Majlis Perbandaran Subang Jaya, MPSJ. Funny, I see recycling bins around Subang Jaya but they are never cleared and eventually turn out to be a dumping site.


#3. Qiuting and me with double chin.

We were in Kampar for another reason too. That is to visit the landfill in Kampar. Mr. Goh, Assistant Environmental Health Officer of MDKS was our ‘tour guide’. He brought us through the beautiful mountainous area to the landfill. You wonder though, how can something so ugly exist among such beautiful mountains. Simple really, it’s all our doing.

So we visited the landfill, which wasn’t a proper landfill. I can’t really elaborate though cause I am new to this too. But from what I understand, the landfill has no proper channeling and lining for the leached water because there isn’t enough funds to have a proper landfill.

When we reached we were brought to this pond (below):


#4. Pond of leached water.

The water looks black, it probably is. But when you are there personally, the water was so clam and undisturbed you might be fooled. If we weren’t told that that was a leacheate pond, we might not know.

The pond is to collect leached water from the landfill. Meaning, whatever water produced from the landfill is channeled to the pond. The best part is, the water gets pumped back to landfill manually once in awhile! Reason us, there is no treatment plant for the water cause it is just a small landfill. During rainy days, the pond would fill up. Overflowed water will flow into a ‘hole’ that will carry the overflowed water to the sea =/


#5. Water channeled from the landfill.

Below are pictures from the landfill. Let me first tell you how I felt. Honestly, I felt scared. We were told the landfill was only 4 years old and remember that Kampar is a small district. The amount of rubbish there was horrifying. I don’t know what the situation is like in main cities and towns. I was afraid, because as I stood there in the middle of the landfill, surrounded by rubbish I also see the beautiful landscape around the landfill. I was afraid because I wondered, will the landscape remain forever beautiful and natural? or will it be destroyed because of our own ignorance and negligence?

Right, I think you guys wanna see the pictures. Here goes. Oh by the way, the landfill is situated behind Gua Tempurung. Meaning while we enjoy the scenery at Gua Tempurung and think what a beauty that place is, right behind it is a landfill, filled with rubbish and one day it cannot support the overwhelming amount of waste anymore then a new landfill will be opened.


#6. See the hill behind, its a mountain actually, a not-so-tall one.


#7. Rubbish, mostly plastic bags etc that are gonna remain there for the next few thousand years.


#8. See where the pile of rubbish stretches to/ It may not seem like along way, believe me it is. And this is only part of it.

Ok, serious mood aside. See the damn blardy ugly arrow below?


#9. Look to where the arrow damn ugly arrow points.

See it? See it? If you realise the landfill is right behind. The banner was an advertisement, telling us about a service provided…


#10. Mandi Bunga & Auraseri.

Bali Spa! With Mandi Bunga (bath with flowers) and Auraseri (don’t know what is that)! Maybe the leached water is of use after all wtf I am so bad with jokes. If you wanna read funny things go read kennysia. By the way, got discount some more, go call the number. ok. shall stop now. full stop.

Next stop was Gua Tempurung. Actually we went there to look see look see only. Didn’t join the caving activites there because it wasn’t part of the days agenda. Never mind! Extended family, we go ok?!?


#11. Entrance to Gua Tempurung.


#12. Me and bamboo named Faeez.


#13. The entrance to the cave from the inside.

After Gua Tempurung, we headed to Taiping for dinner and the night safari at Taiping Zoo. It was a 2 hours hourney I think, so we slept and I saw some beautiful sights I usually miss while sleeping. Lucky I wasn’t sleeping then =)


#14.

No pictures from the zoo though. Cause it was at night, and I can’t take nice night pictures with my very unsteady hand.

I reached back USM at around 10, exhausted but happy I decided to go on the trip.


#15. Group picture of the participants of the study trip, MDKS staff and residents.

—NEXT!

1st Annual Climate Crusaders Conference. Yes. That was the name of the conference. And we are all climate crusaders. Though I’d much prefer being called a tree-hugger.

The conference was held on the 18th Nov, Saturday. Two days after my trip. Tiring? Not as tiring as the people organising all this. I was just helping out. But it was worth every effort.


#16. Dr Lee, talking about cars.

This is Dr. Lee, talking about cars during the conference. He asked us, the facilitators in a meeting once, “Can you imagine a world without cars? Or even fuel?” I don’t know. I can’t. At least not yet. Can you?


#17.


#18. Climate Crusaders a.k.a Tree Huggers.

Ok. I’ve talked about my Kampar trip and I’ve talked about the Conference. Now about me because I am vain like that.

Hello. I am Jessica. Procrastinator. Now, I am procrastinating. And not regretting it. Well, not yet lah.

Below is my attempt to be Malaysia’s NTM. HAHAHAHAH. I think my chances in toothpaste ads are higher than being a model.


#19.

Ok the end.

EH WAIT. NOT YET.

One question for you guys to ponder and please answer cause I wanna know your thoughts.

Can you imagine a world without cars? How about fuel – a world without fuel?

Videos for Thought October 19, 2008

Posted by jessieloi in go green, introspection.
6 comments

I will be busy studying for my 4 tests the next few days.

No pictures from my recent trip to Kampar and the Environmental Conference just yet. But I would like to share with you guys these 2 videos I found. It is truly inspiring. So please take your time to watch them.

This is a speech made by a young girl from ECO — Environmental Children’s Organization. She left a whole room of representatives from all over the world speechless as she talked.

I am not sure how old she is, but she is definitely younger than me. For such a young girl to dare to step out and let her voice makes me think – what are we doing? Shouldn’t WE let our voices be heard too?

EDIT: Severn Suzuki was 12 when she spoke at the conference. She was the founder of ECO – Environmental Children’s Organisation. She found ECO at 10. Amazing.

This other video, I first watched it during the Environmental Conference I attended yesterday. So I went searching for it on youtube.com Very unique. Watch it.

Tree Hugging Me September 15, 2008

Posted by jessieloi in go green, rambles, university.
3 comments

In university, other than studying and getting an A for my genetic’s test HAHA!, I have been involved with environmental campaigns.

You see, in my university, we have this program called Healthy Campus or what we like to call Kampus Sejahtera. This campaign promotes sustainability in all aspects, concentrating on environmental sustainability.

I volunteered for this Healthy Campus project, after hearing a speech by Dr. Lee who pretty much inspired me to do more. He told me I could, and I did. So now, I am a treehugger as dear Suet calls me.

#1. My fellow treehugger, QiuTing.
I started out by contacting Dr. Lee directly actually. I told him I was interested to help out with this campaign. Under the Healthy Campus, the first campaign was the White Coffin Campaign.

#2. The White Coffin
White Coffin basically refers to the infamous polystyrene packets we love to use when buying home our dinner. Yes it is convenient. What we do not know is that polystyrene takes over 1000 years to degrade!
So everytime you use polystyrene, think, do you seriously need it? Why not use those expensive tupperwares you guys buy (or to be more exact your mums) and take away your food in it. You cannot imagine how much waste you are reducing.
Just imagine it this way, when we tapau a packet of chicken rice, you use 1 polystyrene packet. Lets just say in a day, 300 packets of polystyrene are used for just ONE store. There must be millions of chicken rice stores in Malaysia, but lets assume there are only 1000 stores. So in a day, 300,000 polystyrene packets are used and THROWN AWAY!!. And this is just an assumption from 1000 chicken rice stores stores.
#3. Holding the “Say NO to Plastic Bags” Campaign Poster
So now do you understand why I am involved? I am concern. Whether or not you wanna believe global warming is happening, our land on Earth is being used to keep our waste.
When I first involved myself with this campaign, the reactions from some are not encouraging AT ALL.
I get reactions like ”OH why don’t you WALK everywhere you go then?” or “Don’t eat or drink lah then. Oh don’t shower also – save water”
WTF.
I am not asking you to stop living in houses and go live in caves!! 10 years later when our whole Earth is filled with trash that YOU produced, do you think you will even have any space to WALK? When every where is polluted with YOUR TRASH, do you think we will have clean water to even drink?!?
*takes deep breaths*

#4. 
#5.
Right, as you can see from pictures #4. and #5. that is what we do when we campaign. We hold posters and remind people. Polystyrene is actually BANNED in university grounds, but we cannot punish those irresponsible culprits. So we remind them and spread awareness, cause its what we can do.
Despite all the cold stares and irritating remarks I get from ppl, I don’t plan to give up BECAUSE I truly believe I can make a difference.

Go Green August 7, 2008

Posted by jessieloi in go green.
3 comments

The Earth needs us.

The sad thing is, most of us are ignoring its plea.

Awareness campaigns are not giving a huge enough impact on us.

When we ask to recycle, all of you say its a hassle. I don’t understand. Is it so hard to throw your paper into one bin, aluminium cans into another and plastic into a different bin?

Ok, if you say recycling is a hassle, never mine. You still can do your part for the environment. For example, use less plastic.

To ask you to get rid of plastic from your life is impossible, even I can’t do that. However what is possible is to reduce the use of plastic bags ESPECIALLY thin plastic bags. Thin plastic bags are those bags that you get at pasar malam or when you tapau (take away) your food from the chinese kopitiam.

Those bags take a 1000 years to degrade. A 1000 years! All those plastic bags that you freely take and throw away are gonna stay in the wasteland for a 1000 years. Every year, those plastic bags willa accumulate and in the end, there will not be any space left on earth. Earth is big, but it is not made up of unlimited space.

Last year, 12.4 billion (read BILLION) plastic bags were given out in the stores of 21 retail groups in Britain alone. And that is not even the stats for the world usage of plastic bags.

So my dear friends/readers, start reducing on your usage of plastic bags.

It’s very simple.

Anytime where plastic bags are unnecessary, tell the shopkeeper you don’t need it. Especially if you’re holding a bag. You can just put your purchase into your bag. Don’t tell me you need a plastic bag just because you bought a bottle of water.

If you are going to Giant/Carrefour etc or to the market, carry a reusable bag with you like this one…

Put what you bought into that bag, and voila, no plastic bags. The thing with some of us is that we think plastic bags are a neccesity when it really isn’t. Some of you think you life will be filled with hassle and inconvenience if you don’t use plastic bags. How untrue. You’re being stupid and oblivious to the fact that your unneccasary usage of plastic bags is harmful.

If you whould open your eyes a little bigger, you will realise how many plastic bags you actually throw away when you reach home.

It really isn’t that difficult to reduce the use of plastic bags. I can do it why not you. You just have to make an effort to try. I admit I still use plastic bags, but I reuse them. I do not take plastic bags when I buy food or anything from the mini mart. When I take away food I bring my own reusable tupperware, and when I go to a hypermarket I bring my own bag.

I’m doing my part. Are you?