Reduce plastic bag use August
Kota Kinabalu: Come Aug. 1, members of the public will be encouraged to bring their own bag when going out shopping in supermarkets and business premises that take part in the City Hall’s “Bawa Beg Bah'” or 3B campaign.
State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said the initiative is City Hall’s rebranding of a previous campaign launched in 2010 to reduce the use of plastic bags.
He hoped all 384 business premises that took part in the previous campaign would again support and take part in current 3B initiative.
“Among the objectives are to raise consumer awareness on the need to reduce the use of conventional plastic bags and to promote green practices through the 3R concept of reduce, reuse and recycle,” he said during the “Bawa Beg Bah” and Clean City Healthy Community campaign launch with Gleneagles Kota Kinabalu on Tuesday.
His speech was delivered by Asst Minister Datuk Kamarlin Ombi.
The event was held in conjunction with the World’s Environment Day that carries the theme ‘Connecting People to Nature.’
Masidi said just like the previous campaign, the upcoming one will be held every Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
“If customers request for a plastic bag during the campaign, they will be charged 20 sen for every purchase.
This means that even though they are given a few plastic bags for every purchase, they’ll only be charged 20 sen for all the plastic bags,” he explained.
He added that the 20 sen charge is not to penalise customers or to make profit but to give a certain value to it so that the can re reuse instead of being thrown away.
“This is a way to remind customers to bring their own shopping bag,” he said.
The 20 sen charge he said will be collected by the Environmental Action Committee (EAC) Kota Kinabalu and managed by the City Hall which will be used to finance environmental projects.
“I urge members of the public to support this campaign because by reducing or recycling the use of plastic we’re helping to reduce environmental pollution which is often caused by plastic materials such as bags and bottles,” advised Masidi.
During the event, a signing ceremony of a Memorandum of Understanding for the Clean City, Healthy Community programmme between the City Hall and Gleneagles Kota Kinabalu.
The adoption programme which involves a maintaining cleanliness of a monsoon drain near Gleneagles Kota Kinabalu and the surrounding areas aims at raining the image of the Kota Kinabalu as a clean, green and livable city.
“We at Gleneagles KK sees corporate social responsibility as an important part of our business activities and consistent with being a responsible organisation.
“Caring for our communities and taking care of the welfare of our employees and business partners while delivering our commitments to our customers, are in harmony with our values,” said the private hospital’s Chief Executive Officer Jean-Francois Naa.
He also said a team of 58 employees from Gleneagles KK participated in the first clean-up and the activity will be done on a regular basis.
Also present during the launch were City Hall Mayor Datuk Yeo Boon Hai, City Hall Director General Datuk Joannes Solidau and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Local Government and Housing Datuk Ginun Yangus. – Leonard Alaza
Source: Daily Express
