Air Pollution issue in Malaysia - The truth

Air Pollution issue in Malaysia - The truth 

Malaysia, a place where 32 million people calls it home, and where all the beauty of nature lies. It is always a must-go country in the hearts of everyone under the hot sun. A place where you can free your mind by visiting all the mountains, beaches, forest, jungle and etc. It leaves a good image in everybody’s mind, but the untold truth and facts of pollutions has always been covered or ignored. Air pollution has been a crucial issue in Malaysia and in fact, everyone is consuming and breathing in a credit card-size of plastic per week! (Doyle, 2019)

 

Let us take a look of what has caused all the serious air pollution in Malaysia!

Importing and burning of plastic waste

Malaysia has become the dumping ground for the world’s plastic waste after China bans the import of plastic waste. There are around 62 legal companies that holds a permit to import plastic waste from all over the world, other than that, there are also many illegal companies importing plastic waste, which they just burn the plastic waste in the open air.  A few hundred thousand tons of plastic waste are being imported into Malaysia each and every year. Pictures below shows piles and piles of plastic waste being gathered together in Jenjarom, Selangor.

Jenjarom, Selangor

Picture below shows that trash are being imported into Malaysia from the UK.

“We will limit the import of plastic waste from developing countries. So we will limit the imports to only from the United States, Europe and Japan, for quality plastics,” said the minister, who oversees the waste management department.

Although they had promised to only import quality plastics into Malaysia, researches found that most of the plastic scrap coming into the country is contaminated and low-quality plastic from developed countries that is non-recyclable. (Reuters, 2018) Plastic unsuitable for recycling is burnt, which releases toxic chemicals into the atmosphere, which ends up being consumed by Malaysians, which will lead to serious illness. It is much more noticeable to see people get cancers at a very young age, or more and more children are born with illness it selves. Plastics do not belong in any living thing’s body. Other than that, it is also bad for the environment which caused global warming, problems to the atmosphere and etc.  Below are pictures of plastic wastes being burned.

The increasing of road transport

Malaysia is developing in a very rapid pace, yet only Kuala Lumpur is a place with sufficient public transportations. Malaysian roads are packed full of road transports, which Kuala Lumpur is still the worst despite all the public transportations. There are a whopping of 30 million road transports in Malaysia today. There are congestions everywhere in Malaysia’s City, especially Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru. In fact, Malaysia’s Co2 emission is among highest in ASEAN. Malaysia has a disproportionately high carbon dioxide emission per capita – at 7.27 tonnes, double that of Thailand’s 3.64 tonnes and higher than even China’s 6.59 tonnes

This perception has to change as air pollution is a silent killer that penetrates and contaminates our organs, leading to death and diseases.The World Health Organisation had reported that air pollution caused 6,251 deaths in Malaysia up to 2012 and 385,000 people worldwide died prematurely in 2015 from air pollution caused by vehicle exhaust emissions Air pollution is responsible for one out of every nine deaths in Malaysia, making it one of the top causes of death.

 

Seasonal Haze

For many years, we Malaysians has always encounter Hazy seasons. The choking smoke are caused by the open burning of forests and peat bogs.  In recent years haze has become an annual phenomenon during the drier months. It is so crucial that it has resulted many of the schools are being closed for a few days, and widespread illnesses, particularly among the elderly, children and those with breathing difficulties.

Indonesia gets most of the blame. Swathes of rainforest in Sumatra are periodically burnt off to open up land for oil palm plantations, agricultural or commercial purposes. The smoke drifts over with the South west monsoon.Both West and East Malaysia suffer from the haze issue. But Malaysia has its own hotspots too and local industrial and vehicular pollution contribute to the situation. 

Unlike car and factory emission, smoke caused by wildfire are not being filtered.The toxic components of the smoke vary according to the type of material that is burning. Sumatra’s peat fires for example produce smoke which is more harmful than ordinary forest fires.

The graph below shows the measurement of air pollutant index, which Malaysia had reached 300 and above due to the fire.


Below is a video made by us! Hope you all will enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJgrlLpoG2w&feature=youtu.be