- July 14, 2018 @ 9:13pm
KOTA KINABALU: Large amounts of trash washed ashore during recent storms are a threat to the state tourism industry.
In just two weeks, City Hall staff cleared away about 402 tonnes of rubbish in Tanjung Aru and Tanjung Lipat.
The workers of a two-month-old resort on Sepanggar island here alone collected almost 1.5 tonnes of trash in just three days.
Its manager, Affanddi Ooi, said: “A tonne of rubbish was collected in a few days. It is a lot compared with 100 tonnes collected during two years of clean-ups prior to the opening of this resort,” he told a press conference.
Ooi’s colleague Alan Tan said the trash problem, which was a global issue, was a threat to the expanding tourism industry.
“We have been receiving complaints from clients. They were very unhappy going out to the sea because of the garbage.
“One guest who had brought friends from Singapore cut their snorkeling time short after finding there was nothing to see underwater, but rubbish,” he said, adding that the rubbish included bottles, plastic, diapers, broken parts of refrigerators and office furniture.
He said effort had to be made to prevent rubbish from water villages being thrown directly into the ocean.
Monica Chin, co-founder, of the resort operator’s conservation partner, Trash Hero Borneo, said the non-governmental organisation (NGO) had conducted 91 public beach cleanups since March 2017.
“We have been carrying out gotong-royong, but there is no end to it unless people stop littering,” she said.
“The tourism fraternity and NGOs are calling for the government and local authorities to work together, including in terms of enforcement, to tackle the problem."
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| Pix by Khairul Azry/NSTP |
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