Malaysia removed 300 Tonnes of Rubbish from its Rivers Bordering Singapore, Much of Which was Plastic.

These drains Sungai Skudai and Sungai Tebrau in the Johor Bahru region only contributed to the waste.

About 300 tons of waste, particularly plastic containers and plastic-bags, were picked up from two rivers in the Johor state of Malaysia the previous year.

Ling Tian Soon, the committee chairman in the health and environment sector of the Johor Bahru state, claimed that only two rivers, Sungai Skudai and Sungai Tebrau, generated the waste.

“From Sungai Skudai alone, we gathered 207 tonnes of garbage daily while Sungai Tebrau had 93 tonnes daily last year,” he added.

This led to the state government launching a program to prevent river pollution this year called Johor Bersih@Sungai across all 10 districts.

In an interview with reporters Sunday at Kampung Bakar Batu near Perling after launching the program to clean up Sungai Skudai, Ling said the initiative started in 2022 but changed its name twice. He said that there should be such an activity implemented in all districts in Johor for the purpose of cleaning the rivers and at the same time creating awareness among the people on the environment.

“This dumping of garbage into the rivers must be stopped,” he said.

But Ling also mentioned that the water quality of five rivers among the 14 that were identified as polluted in Johor has begun to deteriorate.

“We were able to upgrade the class category for the five rivers which were in categories three and four to category two and higher,” he said.

For that, Ling attributed the improvement to enforcement actions by the Department of Environment and active participation by industry players.

He also said that the state government’s Johor Bersih initiative was going in the right direction as the number of polluted rivers from 14 had been reduced to nine.

Being on Borneo island, the pygmy elephants are seen drinking from a river in Sabah, Malaysia. It is estimated that there are between 120 to 160 elephants in Johor according to the Johor Elephants census report 2014/2015. Photo: Reuters

On a different note, Ling stated that those whose negligence led to the killing of four elephants in a fruit orchard at Kahang Timur in Kluang could suffer the consequences. The elephants were discovered dead on June 1.

“The first report revealed that the death could be because of respiratory and circulatory failure due to bleeding, which was evidenced by the presence of blood in different organs,” he stated.

He said that the state Wildlife and National Parks Department was expecting the final report on the autopsy.

Samples taken from the dead elephants have been taken to laboratory to determine the reason for their death. He said there are suggestions that the elephants may have been poisoned. “However the causative agent has not been identified given that the lab report is yet to be released. ”

Investigations conducted on a preliminary basis showed that these animals belonged to the Bandar Tenggara herd which was freely grazing in the Lenggor, Kluang and Kluang Tambahan Labir and Sembrong forest reserves in Johor and Taman Negara Endau Rompin, Pahang.

Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad announced on June 3 that according to the records of Perhilitan, there have been 646 complaints on human-elephant conflicts in Johor from 2020 to May 2024, among which 292 cases were complaints in the Kluang district.

He said that from the current estimates that has been done, probably there were 120 to 160 elephants in Johor.

“It should be noted that elephants are one of the country’s wildlife assets, and are legally protected under the Wildlife Conservation Act,” he said.