World Environment Day (WED)’s theme for this year is Beat Plastic Pollution. This strikes a chord with the DAP, which is the first green political party in Malaysia. Combating plastic pollution was the first major environmental battle undertaken by the DAP-led Penang State Government since coming to power in 2008.
Penang is the only state to implement the No Free Plastic Bag campaign in all supermarkets and hypermarkets. Twenty sen is charged for each piece of plastic bag – a baby-step in raising public awareness on plastic pollution and introducing the polluters-pay principle. DAP welcomes the initiative to prepare a similar nationwide ban of plastic bags by 2020.
The growing plastic wastes put a huge constraint on our limited resources. Out of 170 waste disposal sites in Malaysia, only 14 are sanitary landfills that could prevent pollution of our soil and water resources. We need to invest in proper integrated waste management system including considering products life-cycle management on manufacturers to reduce environmental impacts at end-of-life.
We are committed to the principle of sustainable development as part of our green agenda stated in our Pakatan manifesto No 39 – balancing economic development with environmental protection.
We must also fulfil our international pledge at the Rio Earth Summit 1992 by maintaining 50% forest cover (including totally protected forests and production forests) and halting biodiversity loss, among a wide range of environmental challenges before us. Penang should not be the only state in Malaysia that has protected our forest reserves by not cutting down a single square inch of forests. Penang is proud of that record that it should be adopted, especially reducing logging in Pahang and Kelantan.
Malaysia is a party to the Paris Agreement (PA) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. Let us be guided by a strong set of those ecological principles that can allow Malaysians to live in an environment that is clean, green, safe and healthy.