BLOTS ON THE LANDSCAPE
By Mary Maguire
One of the things that really gets me hopping mad is the amount of garbage littering the country. No matter where you go, there’s always rubbish lying around.
When I lived in Ampang Jaya in the early 90s there was a stinking rubbish skip at the end of my road which rarely got emptied. I went back there recently to see how the area had changed and could hardly get my bearings. Many of the old houses have been replaced by apartment buildings, there’s even a school on the field where the local kids used to play. Pretty much everything is different, except for the garbage skip – that hasn’t moved and it's still overflowing with foulness.
When I moved to Kuala Kubu Bharu in the mid 90s, it was the same. Open skips in various locations around town attracting flies, dogs, cats and chickens that rummage through the skip spreading the evil stuff all over the side of the road.
In 2005 I moved to Puchong where the garbage was actually collected three times a week but the area was still littered with rubbish. One day I saw a lady throw a bag of garbage onto a green area right outside her own house. When I asked her why she didn’t put it in her bin she told me to mind my own business. Okay! But in my opinion, if she’s dumping her waste in a common area, it is my business.
Now I live in a small village whose stunning natural beauty attracts a lot of visitors, especially at weekends and public holidays. But the majority of these people leave more than their footprints behind. Styrofoam food boxes, plastic bottles and bags, discarded soft drink cans even used diapers are all left littering the village and the nearby river…and this river supplies KL with drinking water.
