2,500kg of plastic bottles fished out of river in Selangor

 

Some 2,500kg of plastic bottles have been collected from Sungai Kandis in Selangor.

The Selangor Maritime Gateway (SMG) initiative said a pilot project to capture floating debris in the river collected 2.5 metric tonnes (2,500kg) of plastic bottles in just one month.

"SMG is running a five-month pilot project with Nestle Malaysia Berhad to recover plastic waste from the Sungai Kandis log boom (one of seven log booms in Sungai Klang installed to catch floating debris under the SMG project).

"For the first month in October, 2.5 metric tonnes of plastic bottles were manually retrieved, cleaned and sent to a recycling centre to be repurposed.

"That means 250,000 PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles did not end up in a landfill," it said in a statement on Facebook.

SMG is an initiative spearheaded by Landasan Lumayan Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Selangor state-owned Menteri Besar Incorporated (MBI).

SMG said if the pilot proves to be effective, SMG and Nestle Malaysia will be expanding the waste recovery initiative to all seven log booms.

However, it urged Malaysians to stop dumping plastic into the rivers.

"So while we do our best to divert waste from landfills, we ask you to do yours and stop waste like plastics from even entering our waterways," it added.

 - Mkini