Environmental Awareness: Let’s Begin From Our Own Town
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. The topic of my speech is “Environmental Awareness: Let’s begin from our own town.” Let’s imagine this; green leaves whispering softly in the tender breeze – crystal clear water rushing down the stream – and the cool air greeting your nose. Sounds a bit too good to be true? Exactly. We can hardly see these anymore. It’s all pollution around us. It’s really sad to watch our own planet being destroyed every second around the world. Perhaps we should start taking some action. Let’s focus on our own town, Miri. We have 3 main problems; air pollution, water pollution and the cleanliness of our town.
Firstly, air pollution. Look at the haze that envelopes our town early in the morning. Why do we have it? It is caused by the open burning by farmers who clear the land to plant crops. It’s also by people burning rubbish in their homes. It is so common. Can we get them to stop burning? Can we? They might ask, what’s wrong with that? We’ve been burning rubbish at our backyards all this while. It has been like a practice. Can we stop it? The government has banned open burning. Those who ignore the ban will be fined from RM 10,000 to RM 50,000 and 2 years imprisonment. But the people are not scared of the law because they have not seen people being punished under this law. So, maybe it’s time for the authorities to really enforce this law to discourage open burning. We should publicize the names of the offenders and their fines, so that people will be scared and not practise open burning anymore.
Secondly, water pollution. Do you know that Miri River is one of the dirtiest rivers in Malaysia? It’s not only an embarrassment, but our health is also in danger. What cause this water pollution? First, there is this inefficient drainage system. Next, toxic waste from factories and finally the dumping of domestic waste into our river. Our source of water has been seriously contaminated. Look at these days, many homes have a water filter systems. They have invested a large amount of money in it. Why is it necessary? In the good old times, we don’t need water filter systems. Our water was clean. We didn’t need to worry about impurities in water. The government has started a cleaning up campaign – ‘Love Our River’ campaign. But this is not an on-going campaign. When the campaign is carried out, the river is clean. But it’s only for a short time. After that, people forget about cleanliness and start dumping rubbish into our river again. Make it an on-going campaign, not just a one-time campaign.
Thirdly, the
problem of the cleanliness of our town. Have you seen the rotten rubbish in the
wet market? Rubbish bins have been provided, but the rubbish is strewn outside
the bins. It’s an unpleasant sight and such an awful smell. The government has
started the 3R campaign, ‘Recycle, Reduce and Reuse’. 3 coloured bins have
been distributed to schools and shopping complexes. Yes, the government has made
an effort, but how about us? We all know the colours of the bins, brown, blue
and orange. Brightly coloured bins – good for decoration purposes. Do we
actually know what they are for? Not many of us do. It proves of rarely we use
them. When you take a closer look, what do you see in the bins? Many a time
you’ll see rubbish thrown into the wrong bins. In this matter, schools can
play a big role. We can organize school-level campaigns to increase the
awareness among students. Competitions such as collecting aluminium cans and old
newspapers should be carried out more often. This can involve the society too.
Indeed, everyone should practise the 3R; Recycle, Reduce and Reuse.