In a press conference earlier today, Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change (MESTECC) Minister Yeo Bee Yin said that 10 containers will be sent back immediately.She added that five containers have already been sent back to Spain.Mestecc will also be conducting an inspection on more than 50 containers of plastic waste which were smuggled in.Once the inspections are done, Yeo expects that a total of 3,000 tonnes of contaminated waste from 60 containers will be shipped back to their countries.Together with the Department of Environment (DoE), Yeo said that 10 inspections have been conducted on 123 containers to dateThese containers originated from countries that include the UK, the US, Japan, China, Spain, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Bangladesh, Norway, and France.

The operations were led by DoE together with Royal Malaysian Customs, The Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM), Port Klang Authority, National Solid Waste Management Department, and Westports Malaysia.In one such case uncovered through investigations, a recycling company in UK had exported 1,000 containers - amounting to 50,000 tonnes of waste - in the last two years alone."We have not only found this one company, we have found a few companies from different countries," Yeo said.Yeo added that the Ministry is compiling a list of these "so-called recycling companies" and will send the list of these names to their respective governments for further action and investigation.

GEORGE TOWN: Penang is facing serious water pollution issues, both on the island and the mainland. The sea off Teluk Bahang is said to be contaminated by heavy metals while in Nibong Tebal, the water at the Sungai Tengah river mouth is black, a problem fishermen there claim has been plaguing them for about 10 years.The situation in the north of the island looks far more serious. Weeks ago only a few fish were found dead. Now, fishes are dying by the thousands.This has deprived fish breeders of their source of income as thousands of ikan kerapu (grouper) are dying in fish cages.“We use to sell about 500kgs of fish at markets and restaurants during the Chinese New Year and about 100kgs at normal times,” said breeder Lim Suan Gian, 64, at his farm in Teluk Bahang.“However, we only managed to sell about 40 to 50kgs over the last two months as most of them ended up dead.

“We are baffled. The Fisheries Department took samples of the dead fish several times but as of today, there has been no indication of what caused the deaths,” Lim said, adding that he suffered losses of about RM130,000 since April.Another breeder, Ooi Hye Hin, 57, said he took up a RM300,000 loan from Agro Bank to buy fish fry and now cannot pay the RM3,000 monthly payments because of this.“Both Lim and I have made five police reports as we have no other income and are not be able to service our bank loans,” Ooi said.He said the dead fish at the farms would have to be thrown away while those that were still alive would remain in the cages.“We have stopped sending our fish supply to customers since April,” he added.

MELAKA: Jabatan Bomba dan Penyelamat Malaysia (JBPM) mengenal pasti 19 lokasi panas atau ‘hotspot’ sebagai kawasan berisiko tinggi berlaku kes lemas sepanjang cuti perayaan Aidilfitri ini.Ketua Pengarah JBPM, Datuk Mohammad Hamdan Wahid, berkata kebanyakan lokasi panas itu terletak di pantai timur seperti Air Terjun Sekayu, Terengganu; Pantai Nipah, Bachok; dan Muara Tok Bali, Pasir Puteh, Kelantan.“Kesemua 19 lokasi itu disenarai berdasarkan kekerapan berlakunya kejadian lemas melebihi lima orang dalam tempoh tiga tahun ini.“Tahun lalu sahaja, ada kira-kira 400 kematian direkodkan akibat lemas membabitkan aktiviti air di seluruh negara,” katanya pada sidang media pada Majlis Jalinan Mesra Ramadan 2019 di Balai Bomba dan Penyelamat Bukit Katil, di sini, malam tadi.

KUALA LUMPUR, May 21 — Malaysia, which has become the dumping ground for the world’s plastic waste, will send back non-recyclable plastic scrap to the developed countries that sent it there, its environment minister said today.Malaysia last year became the leading alternative destination for plastic scrap after China banned imports of such waste, disrupting the flow of more than seven million tonnes of plastic scrap a year.Dozens of recycling factories cropped up in Malaysia, many without an operating licence, and residents complained of environmental damage.Most of the plastic scrap coming into the country is contaminated and low-quality plastic from developed countries that is non-recyclable.

Now Malaysia has begun sending back the waste to its country of origin, said Yeo Bee Yin, Malaysia’s minister of energy, technology, science, climate change and environment.“Developed countries must be responsible in what they send out,” Yeo told Reuters.She said some of the plastic scrap sent to Malaysia was in violation of the Basel Convention, a UN treaty on the trade of plastic waste and its disposal.Malaysia has already sent five containers of contaminated plastic waste that was smuggled into the country back to its source, Spain, she said. The minister did not identify the smugglers but said an investigation was ongoing.More non-recyclable plastic will be sent back to its source next week, she said.

LETTER | Many Ipoh folk like me take our hills and forests for granted. We seldom stop to ‘stand and stare’, to take in the beauty of these majestic green sentinels that form the natural backdrop to our homes and city. We paid for this nonchalance when during the Chinese New Year break this year, a huge 10ha patch of forest was mysteriously shaved off Kledang Hill. Heavy machinery had been used to clear the hill slope, and oil palm seedlings planted. The swiftness with which all this happened was startling, but what was more shocking was that it had apparently escaped the notice of all the relevant enforcement bodies.When civil society demanded answers, the Perak state government and MB Inc, which owned part of the land, declared the clearing of the forest illegal and outside their knowledge. To date however, the culprit has not been brought to book despite police reports by the public.

Many other disturbing truths then began to emerge. Among others, we learnt with dismay that the state government itself had plans for a housing project on the Bukit Kledang hill slope even before this ‘illegal’ clearing was done.Is Perak so desperately short of flat land that we need to fell a forest on a hill slope to build houses? And housing for whom? It definitely can’t be for the B40 who face an acute shortage of affordable housing.Under pressure from an indignant public, the state government gave the assurance that they were abandoning the housing project, and that the slope will be reforested and restored to its former status.

PARIS: Scientists in the United States have detected the highest levels of planet-warming carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere since records began, sounding new alarm over the relentless rise of man-made greenhouse gas emissions..26The Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, which has tracked atmospheric CO2 levels since the late 1950s, on Saturday morning detected 415.26 parts per million (ppm).It was also the first time on record that the observatory measured a daily baseline above 415 ppm.

The last time Earth’s atmosphere contained this much CO2 was more than three million years ago, when global sea levels were several metres higher and parts of Antarctica were blanketed in forest.“It shows that we are not on track with protecting the climate at all. The number keeps rising and it’s getting higher year after year,” Wolfgang Lucht, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), told AFP“This number needs to stabilise.”But far from stabilising, levels of CO2 – one of a trinity of greenhouse gases produced when fossil fuels are burnt – are climbing ever more rapidly.Ralph Keeling, director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s CO2 Programme, said the trend would probably continue throughout 2019 – likely to be an El Nino year in which temperatures rise due to warmer ocean currents.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia dijangka mengalami lebih banyak bilangan hari tanpa hujan apabila Monsun Barat Daya yang bermula 6 Mei ini akan berterusan sehingga pertengahan September.Ketua Pengarah Jabatan Meteorologi (METMalaysia), Alui Bahari, berkata ketika Monsun Barat Daya, lazimnya angin bertiup secara konsisten dari arah barat daya dengan keadaan atmosfera lebih kering dan kelembapan udara yang rendah.Katanya, ia akan menyebabkan kurangnya pembentukan awan hujan sepanjang tempoh monsun itu.

“Kebanyakan negeri akan mengalami lebih banyak bilangan hari tanpa hujan berbanding bilangan hari hujan ketika Monsun Barat Daya.“Keadaan ini menyebabkan taburan hujan yang rendah dan cuaca panas.“Sepanjang tempoh Monsun Barat Daya ini, taburan hujan di kebanyakan negeri dijangka berada pada paras purata kecuali Melaka, Johor dan Sabah dijangka sedikit di bawah purata,” katanya dalam kenyataan, hari ini.Alui berkata, fenomena garis badai (squall line) yang membawa hujan lebat, angin kencang dan petir bagaimanapun boleh berlaku di kawasan barat Semenanjung dan barat Sabah pada awal pagi.“Garis badai adalah garisan ribut petir yang terbentuk akibat penumpuan angin dan atmosfera yang tidak stabil serta mempunyai jangka hayat sehingga beberapa jam.“Maklumat dan ramalan cuaca terkini boleh diperoleh melalui laman web, aplikasi mobil myCuaca, media sosial, RakanMET dan Hotline Jabatan Meteorologi Malaysia,” katanya.

NOBODY talks about garbage until they smell the stink. Malaysia has to act soon or face major problems in the future, when we all will be throwing up because of the smell.I wrote two years ago about the use of waste-to-energy (WTE) plants, at a time when the government was deciding whether to go with them or not (“Time to look at incineration”, The Star, Sept 29, 2017; online at bit.ly/star_waste). We cannot wait too long.My feeling about the matter became more urgent when news broke about the Pasir Gudang, Johor, chemical dumping incident in March this year and the latest news about the world’s oceans dying from plastic in 10 rivers, most of them from Asia (bit.ly/ban_plastic).Malaysia must act and not just react. And there are valuable lessons we can learn from countries of the South.

Will Kuala Lumpur wait till we are in a desperate situation before we choose to act?

Thank God, Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin has been listening and keeping up with developments. She has come out in support of WTE solutions in Parliament and in various interviews with the mediaShe has mentioned Bukit Payung and Seelong (in Johor), Jabi and Samling (Kedah) and Bukit Tagar (Selangor) as potential sites for such plants. It is curious she said Bukit Tagar because it is also where the landfill is. Are we going to see the Bukit Tagar landfill turn into a WTE plant?

Shah Alam: Lembaga Pelabuhan Kelang (LPK) akan berbincang dengan pelbagai pihak berkepentingan untuk memudahkan eksport sisa tidak sah kembali ke negara asal, sekiranya diarahkan oleh Kementerian Tenaga, Sains, Teknologi, Alam Sekitar dan Perubahan Iklim.LPK, dalam satu kenyataan, berkata pihaknya sedia bekerjasama sepenuhnya dengan kementerian terbabit serta agensi kerajaan lain yang berkaitan bagi membendung isu pengimportan sisa plastik melalui Pelabuhan Klang.“Tindakan proaktif yang diambil oleh LPK termasuk memberi peringatan kepada pengimport dan ejen perkapalan berhubung pengimportan sisa plastik secara tidak sah.

Atasi pengisytiharan palsu

“Pengisytiharan palsu diikrar ejen penghantaran adalah masalah utama yang wajar diatasi dari pelbagai sudut termasuk mengenakan tindakan berat terhadap pengimport dan ejennya.“Selain itu, proses risikan perlu ditambah baik, tekanan ditingkatkan terhadap negara pengeksport dan ejen perkapalan wajib menyemak perihal pelanggan mereka di pelabuhan,” katanya.BH sebelum ini melaporkan, penyalahgunaan kuasa dan penyelewengan pihak tertentu di pelabuhan utama negara, disyaki punca Malaysia kini menjadi lokasi pelupusan sampah dari negara maju, secara haram.Berselindung di sebalik perisytiharan sebagai sisa pepejal bersih, kontena berisi sisa plastik tercemar yang tidak boleh dikitar semula dibawa masuk ke negara ini.

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