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| Class Photo of Environmental Ethics Policy & Law |
On 6 December 2014, I and my classmates went to Sungai Gabai
Waterfall to do river cleaning activity as our assignment for Environmental Ethics,
Policy and Law Subject. The purposes of
this project are to raise awareness of the environment among students; nnsuring
students get new environmental science through application directly while
completing tasks; create a clean environment; foster the cooperation among
students and visitors and local residents. In this project, about 50 peoples
including our lecturer Dr. Fauziah Shahul Hamid are involved. We departed from University Malaya about 8.15
in the morning by carpools and we arrived at Sungai Gabai Waterfall at 9 a.m.
It is a little bit rainy on that day, but thankfully the rain stopped as we
arrived.
Before we started our main agenda for the day, that is river cleaning,
we had some icebreaking among ourselves. The icebreaking activity was conducted
by the chief of charging bureau, Hafizulisra. All of us were divided into 8 groups.
Each group was given a packet of bread and an orange per person. The fastest
group that can finished up all the foods are the winners. In this game, the
main objective is to test the spirit of cooperation and tolerance as well as
strategies in a team. The game takes about 15 minutes to finish. After that, we
had a second game that is poison box. In this game, we were asked to make a
large circle and a box filled with small numbered papers was being passed
amongst ourselves while the music played. When the music stops, the person
holding the bottle is required to take the existing numbers in the box and they
need to perform the requested action by the question. This game required us to
be creative and critical and the same time.
After having icebreaking activity about 45 minutes, we moved on to
the second agenda that is spreading the environmental awareness to visitors at
Sungai Gabai Waterfall. This environmental awareness campaign was carried out
to visitors in groups according to the initial group during icebreaking
session. We bombarded every visitor who is present and disseminate the
importance of protecting the environment and its effects. The majority of
visitors expressed a positive response to our campaign and also praised the
initiatives of this program. The visitors are also invited to join us to clean
up the river and souvenirs in the form of environmental awareness material were
given to them as an appreciation.
Next, we were having the main agenda for the day that is river
cleaning. We collect all the waste that can be taken where the waste were
scattered along the waterfall up to fourth stage of Sungai Gabai Waterfall. The
wastes were separated into two types; which can be recycled and which cannot be
recycled. Most types of waste that we have collected are plastic bottles,
plastic packaging material, and polystyrene. The total amount of waste that we
collect is 29.2kg for waste which cannot be recycled and 14kg of waste that can
be recycled. Wastes that can be recycled were brought back to be sent to
recycling center and wastes that cannot be recycled were handed over to committee
in charge of the facility in Sungai Gabai Waterfall. In addition to the river
cleaning activities, we also make a simple water quality test to test the level
of cleanliness Sungai Gabai Waterfall. Here are the results of the test; pH -
7, Nitrate - 5ppm, phosphate - 1, Dissolved Oxygen (DO) - 0, temperature - 26C,
turbidity - 40 JTU. The results of this test indicated the water quality of
Sungai Gabai Waterfall is at a low level, especially when the DO was zero showed
no organisms that can live in it.
What is more surprising is the amount of wastes collected that is
quite a lot. These wastes were also not disposed in the right place like trash
bin instead be left at the edges of the road leading to the waterfall and most
of the garbage is made of plastic, which requires at least 450 years to
decompose. This is very shocking and shameful. This shows that the Malaysian
public awareness about the importance of protecting the environment is very
low. However, it is the responsibility of every citizen in a community to
remind each other of the importance of protecting the environment and student
groups are also part of the community. Thus, students ought to be the agents of
change to society by carrying out similar activities rather than just
theorizing in lecture halls. I feel very grateful and proud to be involved in
this activity because this activity made me realize the importance of spreading
awareness to the public. It is expected that these activities do not stop here
and will be conducted also in the future without the needs to be a necessary
assignment in any subject at university instead on the efforts and initiative
of the students themselves.
After the river cleaning activity, we had lunch and informal speech
delivered by Dr. Fauziah Shahul Hamid as our lecturer for the course and Afiq
Hazimi as the director for this river cleaning project. We also hung a banner at
Sungai Gabai Waterfall about the importance of taking care of the river for
public viewing. We departed back to University of Malaya at 1.20 p.m. To end this report I would like to quotes very
meaningful quotes from two figures.
‘The activist is not the man
who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river’
-Ross Perot
‘People blame their environment. There is only one person to blame
- and only one - themselves.’ -Robert Collier
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| Posters for Environmental Awareness |
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| Environmental Awareness Banner left at Sungai Gabai Waterfall |
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| Environmental Awareness Campaign to visitors |
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| Cleaning River |
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| Bring the waste down |
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| Simple Water Quality Test |
