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Iliyas (left) hands over the endorsement to Diuh.
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12th October, 2008
KOTA KINABALU: City Hall’s anti litterbug campaign is gaining strength with more public support.
Since the launch of the campaign on May 3, various agencies have come forward and accepted the call by City Hall to make Kota Kinabalu a city free from litter.
“This shows that our effort to educate the public and raise awareness about the importance of a nice and clean environment is working,” Mayor Datuk Iliyas Ibrahim said after endorsing SMK Sanzac as a litter-free school.
SMK Sanzac is the third school in the city after SK St. Francis Convent and Sekolah Menengah Perempuan Likas to have been declared litter-free.
SMK Sanzac is the first mixed school in the city to receive the recognition.
Iliyas extended his gratitude to the school teachers, staff and students for their hard work in making the acknowledgement possible.
He said, “The school’s efforts were a good strategy to nurture students who will become our future leaders and as lovers of clean environment,” The School’s Recycle Bank was later also launched by the mayor.
The concept was adopted from the Recycle Bank in Penang which the Ministry of Housing and Local Government suggested should become a nationwide model during the national Recycling Day last year.
With the re-cycling bank, students, teachers and people living in surrounding areas could send in materials such as newspapers, papers, magazines, plastics and aluminium to the school in small quantities.
“I believe this program could play a big role towards protecting our environment. Our biggest challenge in waste management is increasing the lifespan of waste disposal sites,” said Iliyas.
With 144,000 tonnes of wastes collected annually, Iliyas said the waste disposal site at Kayu Madang would be filled to the brink in no time.
However, a material recovery facility in Kayu Madang combined with efforts by city folks had successfully recycled 40 percent of the waste.
According to Iliyas, recycling could help prolong the lifespan of waste disposal sites and save resources such as fuel, electricity and water.
At the event, Iliyas received 1,600 applications from the school teachers, staff and students to become members of Rakan Bandaraya.
Also present at the occasion were City Hall director general Datuk Dr Chua Kim Hing, representative from Kota Kinabalu Education Department Hussin Dahlan, president of Parents and Teachers Association Janis Abdullah, and the SMK Sanzac school principal Diuh Balimbang.
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