GEORGE TOWN: The members of an environmental group in Sungai Petani, Kedah, lodged more than 10 police reports yesterday on the air pollution that has gone unabated despite repeated complaints to the authorities.
Persatuan Tindakan Alam Sekitar Sungai Petani (PTAS) pro tem committee chief Lydia Ong said the reports were lodged yesterday after the members had exhaused all avenues in airing their grievances.
“The Kedah government is too weak and too slow to act. All our complaints have not been heeded. We have given them plenty of time but the factories are continuing to operate and the air quality has worsened,” she told FMT.
Sungai Petani residents had complained that waste, brought into the town from several countries, was being incinerated illegally causing poor air quality levels.
The association claimed that more than 100 illegal factories were burning plastic waste and causing the air quality to drop since late last year, resulting in a constant haze.
It said that despite the sealing of 30 factories by state and federal authorities recently for violating environmental rules, the factories had continued to operate in the early hours of the morning.
PTAS also found a rise in respiratory illnesses as reported by some 30 general practitioners in Sungai Petani, with one serious case involving a five-year-old girl who is now relying on nebulizers to help her to breathe.
Ong also said she lodged a police report against an MP, who she claimed defamed her when she handed a memorandum to him on Saturday.
She said she and a few other members of the association had approached him to hand over a memorandum on the illegal plastic recycling factories and air pollution.
She had also asked the MP to bring the matter up at the new Parliament meeting.
Ong alleged that before she could finish explaining, the MP said “don’t go burning other people’s factory the next time” and “why did you go burn people’s factory?”
Ong, a former two-term Penang assemblyman and state executive councillor, said her conversation with the MP was caught on video.
It was learnt that the MP was likely referring to an April incident where a recycling factory was destroyed in a fire. The factory owner lodged a police report against a PTAS member, blaming the member for causing the fire. PTAS denied the claim.
FMT has contacted the MP for his comment and is awaiting his reply.
Kuala Muda police chief Adzly Abu Shah confirmed that Ong had lodged a police report.
Ong said the pollution had got from bad to worse, reaching 395 on the Air Pollutant Index (API) on the PM2.5 scale, and recording 770 on the PM10 scale last Saturday.
The readings had exceeded what was considered “very unhealthy” on the API scale, which has a cap of 300. The official DoE API listed was 67 on a PM2.5 scale for Sungai Petani.
She said Saturday’s readings were recorded at an industrial area next to Cinta Sayang Resort at 6.35am.
An API reading of 101 to 200 is classified as “unhealthy”, and between 201 and 300 as “very unhealthy”. Readings from 51 to 100 are “moderate”, and 0 to 50 “good”.
PM2.5 are fine particles measuring just 3% of human hair which can enter the circulatory system. They have been closely linked to heart attacks, besides triggering asthma and respiratory problems, according to a Journal of the American Medical Association study. - FMT
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