Power of Change: New Media and New Communities

In the 21st Century, the power of change will be changed tremendously. It is no more a superpower to monopolize the views of others and to dictate what other should do, but rather the community of cyber world will have better say now. The recent turn of event in United States of bombing Syria for example showed that the US Government or even the President without the support of alliance countries and people of America has to think twice and back track from the decision of evading Syria. This power of change is expedite because of the advancement of new media and new community. The social media optimizing the strength of information technology has expedite the way people disseminate information, broadcasting the news, making an informed decision and framing up own opinion towards an issue. There are pros and cons on this. If the information gathered is genuine and trustworthy, then it help to democratize people’s mind and involvement in the society and development process. However, if fault news are circulated without any authenticity checking, then it is a dangerous of creating chaos and conflict. On the other hand, new community away from the community at neighbourhood area is created with the existence of social media. People sharing the same interest or hobby can form their own community or discussion group. Similarly, if a group of people sharing same vision and passionate about doing some common things, they will use social media as a platform for discussion and meeting or even planning an event together without physically attending to a meeting room. How should we call this kind of community? They are definitely different from the community we know of. Traditionally, community are created because everyone is staying in a place, sharing public facilities and services, using same access road and perhaps going to local school or places of worship together. As time pass on, the sense of community spirit inculcated and getting stronger. They will look after the safety and health issues in their living environment. But with the community in cyber space, will they care about surrounding and happening in their living area? Perhaps it is time now for community in neighbourhood area to change, to adopt to the advancement of technology and apply it in the daily routine, communication, planning and monitoring and etc. Perhaps it is time to reshape the planning guidelines to facilitate the application of social media in the community planning. Without that, without doubt in near future, our next generation might be saying that my soul is elsewhere although I am physically belong to this neighbourhood. Certainly, we do not want this from happening.

Public Participation

Malaysian Institute of Planners (MIP) organised a discussion on public participation in planning last Saturday prior to the holding of an Extra Ordinary General Meeting discussing the proposed amendment to the Constitution. A resident was invited to share his experiences and thoughts on public participation in particular their involvement in public objection process. He reckoned that as a lay man, it is very difficult for them to put up their case as professional as it can or supported their claim and experiences with technical data or analysis. As a NGO on voluntary basis, they are also facing with lack of resources and expertise. Thereby, asking them to have professional discourse without too emotional and setimental attached over a proposed development project is always a difficult task. The public at large definitely need some input and help from the professional individual or bodies. It is time for Institute like MIP to provide pro-buno services providing advisory, educating and facilitating role for general public to understand constructive planning so that decision making process can be participatory in nature.

The discussion also brought up interesting scope of public participation. It was argued that what residents are interested at the moment is public objection, objecting to all development projects. Public participation is more than public objection during the planning permission process stage. Stakeholders can be and shall involve themselves during the development plan preparation stage so that their views on future development direction and form can be co-determined. However, this is seldom highlighted and given proper focus. Many time we witnessed cool response from the public in plan exhibition and objection stage. Only when it come to actual development proposal, we saw people come out in full force stated their opinion. This should not be the case in which public representation should be done equally important during the plan preparation and development control stage. I presume people is not doing so during plan preparation stage as while some is handicapped with the technical knowledge, many just simply have apathy (I do not care) attitude. Hence, education and capacity building is important in which I reckoned that MIP can play an important role outreaching the mass. Perhaps local planning authorities should also do more to proactively engaging the people in soliciting their views, small or big and silly or constructive. Effective communication and public relation exercise is definitely order of the day.

Rain Water Harvesting

I saw the simple method of collecting rain water and also a complicated one during the visitation to different neighbourhood area for the last two week. A community group in PJS area uses the normal piping to channel water collected from the roof top into a container on the ground level. It is conventional style that can be found in the village and rural area. Although simple in design, it is cheap and appropriate for area without much resources. Another system we visited in SS22 neighbourhood area was done with complete and separate piping system. The rain water is harvested and channelled to the herbal garden few hundred meters away. It comes with filtering feature to get rid of the tree leaf and waste particulate. The system is also used as a demonstration tool to educate general public on rain water harvesting. Whatever the system is, the function of collecting, storing and using the rain water efficiently is required.

Study shows that by collecting rain water for watering the plants and cleaning of floor, a household can save up to 35% of their monthly water bill. Although small in amount compared to other utilities cost, the saving is significant because water resources is getting precious now. Apart from that, storing run off from heavy down pour will also minimise the chances for flash floor in cemented urban area.

Making rain water harvesting a mandatory requirement for new housing project is no more a luxury but a neccisity. Well, afterall, it is predicted that in one day, fighting for water source might become one of the reasons of war between nations.

PJ Sustainable Community Award 2010/11

PJ Sustainable Community Award 2010/11 is back again for the 8 years in running. This prestige community award in recognising the sustainable development efforts done by neighbourhood organisations is the first of its kind in Malaysia. The judging is based on sustainable development criteria namely the green neighbourhood, safe neighbourhood, social integration, good governance and social entrepreneurship. The Award entry is opened to all registered residents organisations, neighbourhood watch and village security and development committee in Petaling Jaya.

Closing date for submission is on 16th June 2011 with a total of RM100,000 is on the offering. On top of that, participating organisation will also be receiving RM1000 each upon evaluation done by the panel of judges.

While community groups have been given ample incentives to implement sustainable community initiatives and rightly so, many good practices have been carried out on the ground. This is evidence with the visit and learning trips by others to these neighbourhood. One wonder if this is the case, then MBPJ as the prime mover for this Award should also be awarded with similar Award amongst the local authorities. However, this is not the case as MBPJ has never accorded the Sustainable City Award. Then, the question is what went wrong? Some presume we might have so eager on asking members of the community to carry out sustainable initiatives that we ourselves have not done enough. Really, soul searching is needed.

Disabled Women Day

In celebrating the International Women Day, a health day for the disabled women was organised by a group of concerned citizen in collaboration with MBPJ. While the celebration of Women Day has always talked about the challenges on gender equity and women power, not many have focused on the plight of disabled people in conducting their daily routine. Disabled women might have suffered more compared to the opposite gender as they are not in the forefront of championing the cause and challenges of disabilities. Hence, the effort by this group to out reach the women is commendable.

Opportunities and platform should be provided with ease for the disabled women so that their right can be protected, their plight can be heard and more importantly they are given equal opportunities to be excelled in their livelihood. While we do not see many disabled on the road, we cannot marginalise their presence. Their absence from the public is not because the number is small but simply because the physical environment has failed them. The connectivity and accessibility are not there to facilitate their movement.

I wish everyone should have done more for everyone.

Sustainable Living

I have an interesting question about individuals take on sustainability.

I noticed that household do not mind to spend thousand dollars to install water filter system in their house as many do not feel safe of using the piped water. Many have no confident on the quality of water supply. They are willing to spend for their own health and safety, and of course sustainability.

I am wondered if similar principle is applied beyond their house compound. For example, spend more time and money disposing their rubbish at source. Buying a composting machine to turn the waste into compost or to create the waste water before discharging into the drain and river. While everyone foresee a problem of keeping own compound dirty and untidy or not to have clean stuff coming in, nobody has actually bothered about dirty things of flowing outside their house. For instance, we never bother about how our rubbish is treated and dumped to. We do not even want to know that waste water or grease flowing out from our kitchen is polluting the river.

So, it is matter of reverting our principle to good use. It is matter of treating the environment in our surrounding to the same treatment that we expect to receive for ourselves in our home. It is about basic right that we would like to enjoy with the condition that others are not affecting from enjoying the same right.

It is about sustainable development.

Sustainable City Award

Judges for the Malaysian Sustainable City Award competition visited Petaling Jaya on 24 and 25th June 2010. The purpose was to evaluate the sustainability performance of the Council based on reports and documents submitted. MBPJ together with MPSJ, MP Miri and MB Sibu have been shortlisted this annual award organised by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and Ministry of Housing and Local Government. Apart from briefing, the judges were brought for tour to Beautiful Gates Disabled Centre, SS2 Town Centre, Bukit Gasing Hill, Sungai Way River and SK Sri Kelana, some of the project site under the auspicious of Local Agenda 21 Petaling Jaya initiative.

I believe the judges must be impressed with enthusiasm shown by us as well as our partners in service. One of the significant point to make is the presence and involvement of stakeholders in all projects. I am sure no other areas have seen such dynamism and diverse groups of working together for the betterment of city environment. It is enlightening to see that bottom up rather than top down approach has been widely applied here. The programmes themselves are wide range, from social, neighbourhood, economy to environment at community or city level. Importantly also the sustainability of stakeholders, the most difficult element when it comes to the community development.

Environmental Talk

I was invited to deliver a talk to the parents, teachers and students of Choon Wen Primary School last Friday on environmental issues and challenges. It was attended by about 100 people and ended in 2 and half hours. Apart from showing them the slide, I showed them some documentaries on environmental issues and what actions that can be taken individually or through collective actions. The presentation ended with a quiz and I presume many understood what I have tried to disseminate as most, if not all got the answers right.

I am very impressed with the enthusiasm shown by attendees especially the school authority and parents. The Headmaster spoke about environmental education and initiatives that the school has taken. These include recycling day once a week, campaign on 3R, handicraft making with recyclable items, greenery and planting and etc. I think they are on the right track for the honour of being sustainable school.

Many have shown great interest in learning how to save energy and water resources. One of the interesting thing is many are so passionate of going green, but quite often do not acquire the knowledge and skills of doing it. For example, many are of the view that it is ok for having remote control for electrical appliances such as TV, decoder and air-con but do not realise that it is energy consuming for putting the appliance into stand by mode. Well, perhaps it is for the purpose of convenience.

I am glad of giving the opportunity to share my thought and experience in environmentalism and I hope to do more in time to come.

4th Organic Day 2010

I saw bigger crowd for the Organic Day at Section 19 Field last Sunday. It was the first time that the carnival was held on Sunday compared to the previous three which were held on Saturday. Perhaps more people have precious time for this outing.

One of the interesting do was the dialogue between organic farmers, NGOs, agencies and consumers. The interactive session was held to clear the doubt of consumers on the true and pure organic produce and the ways of identifying the genuine produce. The session also provided farmers the opportunities to gather market information from the consumers. At the same time, it was also an opportunity for education and experiential learning towards organic friendly lifestyle society.

The Organic Day has also attracted attention from university. Bus loaded of students from the National University of Malaysia were there to mingle around with the crowd. Interestingly enough I met with a fellow planners attached with the Federal Planning Department. He commended our partnership efforts between MBPJ, CETDEM and Residents Association of Section 19. To him, this is truly sustainable development in practice. Such community initiatives should have been taken place at more venue, more frequent and involve more people. Thank you Sir for your commendation. Certainly, the next one on 4th July 2010 will see bigger crowd and presence of more exhibitors and activities.

Organic Day 2010

Volunteers are putting up buntings and banners all over PJ during weekend. They are arranging advertising and publicity programmes for announcing the event. They keyed in personal data of visitors from previous visits. They sent out notice of the Day to the general public. A handful of them will be stand by at the venue to oversee the setting up of canopy, signpost, tables and chairs a day before the event. On 11th April 2010, many of them will manage the exhibition and sale booths as well as conducting demonstrations and talks on composting and farming. I can sense and feel the volunteerism spirit and enthusiasm of these people who come for a singular objective, that is to promote organic produce and lifestyle for sustainable development.

I believe this is the reason behind the success of Organic Day, 4 times in a row since August 2009. The unsung heroes working from behind the scene together with leadership of Ms Tan, CETDEM has sustained the event that drawing bigger crowd now. More requests for space from farmers and retailers are received each time announcement is made about the Day. More telephone calls are received from general public enquiring about the date, time and whereabouts of the event. But more importantly to me is, public awareness on organic produce and environmental conservation are improving. Public get used to patronise the Day with own shopping bag. Exhibitors are comfortable with collecting away their own rubbish. Public are disciplined to park their cars in order without blocking the traffic. Some have even started producing eco-enzyme, composting and urban farming after attending the demonstration sessions and guided tour of CETDEM Organic Farm. To me, it is a good indicator on sustainable development in PJ.

This is another good practice of smart partnership between MBPJ, NGO and community. While as local authority, we are facilitating the event by providing logistic support and encouragement, CETDEM and Section 19 Residents Association are running the actual show. It is a true equal partnership on community development, and hence good governance in practice.

In appreciating this efforts, please make yourself free this coming Sunday, 11th April 2010 from 8am to 2pm at the Jalan 19/22 Field, Petaling Jaya.

Green Awards

The 2nd Green Award 2010 is back. Invitation to all the schools in Selangor and Federal Territory were sent out last Tuesday during the Award Launching at MBPJ. The brain child of Ms Yasmin Rasyid, Founder of Ecoknights, the Award is held to raise awareness of students on environmental conservation through creative and innovative ideas. This year theme is Let's Recycle with priority given to 3R concept.

Compared to last year competition, this year will see bigger area of coverage which extended from PJ to other parts of Selangor State and Kuala Lumpur. The partners has been expanded from 4 to 7 now. The categories of two Awards remained the same with slight modification of judging. Instead of visiting to the schools at the early stage, visits will only done after the shortlisted 10 schools have began their project according to the submitted proposal.

The beauty of this project, to me is not about another green project for students, but incorporating innovation and creativity with the environmental conservation initiatives. Something that need to be strengthened as many of the environmental awareness projects have been so monotonous and so "boring" least to say. Students today need a lot of encouragement and excitement for them to be interested and got involved in a field. If the marketing of project is not in flavour to their taste and aspiration, for God sake they will not want to participate or even to know. Thereby, innovation in marketing is particularly important in which having a competition encouraging students creativity should be the way forward. Telling them what is good about environment and what should they do is not enough, but getting them to tell us what they know about environment and what they intend to do is much more challenging and could yield better result, I presume.

I am particularly happy with the progress made by Green Award. From a localised PJ initiative, it has been extended to other parts of Klang Valley. This is what I have envisioned for Local Agenda 21 Petaling Jaya, that is to initiate something new, out of the box and to start from small but achievable projects instead of embarking onto something big at the initial stage but unsustainable later. I hope Green Award will become a national project in years to come and I presume this will be another contribution of LA 21 PJ to our nation and sustainable development.

By the way, we are celebrating 10 years of Local Agenda 21 Petaling Jaya as well as in Malaysia.

Security Fund Raising Dinner

My Neighbourhood is raising fund on this coming Saturday for the security scheme project. When it comes to security and safety, everyone is concerned and nobody will dare to say NO as you might not know some unexpected encountering might have happened to you and your family members next moment of time. Currently, the residents paid RM50 per month per household for private patrolling and the payment is expected higher with the proposal of deploying more security guards and coverage of wider area and longer time. However, many are still not satisfied with the service performance of the existing company. The Committee is on the look out for other companies as well. To me, no matter how well we have done in selecting a good company, safety level is not guarantee simply because criminals are also on the look out for new opportunities for crime. We can only make things difficult for crime to commit, it is no way of achieving zero crime.

While many arguments on gated and guarded community were brought up for the past few weeks, the debate has been gone into two different end, one 100% for that and the other one was not supportive at all. Both have valid argument and strong reasons behind it. Those in support are fearful about safety for themselves and families in which many of them have been at the receiving end of crime personally or through their families members. Those opposed the scheme are reasoning it with the legal points of view. It is true that the legislation do not allow closure of access or controlled point for accessibility in a public road. It is true that placing a blockage permanently at the ingress is becoming fire and emergency hazard. I think nobody denies the possibility of danger and right of way for every individual. It is a matter of priority and scarify.

If all are sharing the vision of creating a safe community for all, then it is an obligation and responsibility for all in making all efforts for doing that. Perhaps this include controlled ingress and egress of the neighbourhood. The question is how to make it friendly to all users of the public road while maintaining high level of safety within the neighbourhood. I personally think that engaging security guards and put up a watching post at the entrance of neighbourhood is not the only solution, but an easy one through paid service. We should explore others as well. For example, making a vibrant neighbourhood with more community activities, encouraging the housewife and senior citizen to go on street for community chit-chatting and morning work out, having the voluntary patrolling scheme, organising knowing your neighbours campaign, keeping watch on any vice activities in your area, inculcating good neighbourliness and etc. It should be integrated and collectively.

Please support the Dinner as an encouragement for those making an effort for a safer community.

Klang River Rehabilitation

As part of the Klang River Rehabilitation Initiative by Selangor State Government, MBPJ together with residents group at PJS area formed the River Rangers Group under the partnership spirit of Local Agenda 21 Petaling Jaya. An action plan was formulated with many actions and programmes to be implemented. One of the many proposal, I think the Drains Adoption Scheme must be the most excited and attracted.

Under the Drains Adoption Scheme, residents groups will become adopted parent to monitor the status of drains, to report to MBPJ on the status and to initiate community actions for maintaining the drains. A Community clean up was organised last Sunday with participation of 30 residents from PJS1. The monsoon drain along the Jalan PJS 1/15 was cleaned with the help of MBPJ and Alam Flora. During the course of action, we thought of paint up the retaining wall of the drain with civic message and drawing. This might attract attention, we thought.

Water quality test was also conducted to gauge the water status of Klang River at PJS 3. The survey conducted by residents with sample test kit took into consideration PH test, BOD and other parameters. Generally, it showed that room for improvement is there.

The group is participating in the River Carnival on 13 & 14 th March 2010 hosted by the Selangor State Government. We shared with other community groups on river monitoring and rehabilitation apart from taking part in the games related to River.

We welcome others to become River Rangers and join us for rehabilitating the Klang River.

289,669

A Malaysia Record was born last Saturday. The largest collection of beverage packets in a month was achieved with the collection of 289,669 unit of packets. This is a joint attempt by MBPJ, TetraPak and Lions Clubs International District 308B1, Malaysia to raise awareness on 3R Initiative. The high impact programme was commenced on 1st February 2010 and end on 6th March 2010 with the fun-filled and entertaining Recycling Carnival at One-Utama Shopping Centre.

While achieving the Record is an achievement itself for Local Agenda 21 Petaling Jaya, the most important message to bring out from the campaign is participatory implementation of 3R. For the first time, Lions Clubs throughout Malaysia were collecting the packets and amazingly Lions Club of Kuala Trengganu comes out top amongst the participating organisation with a total collection of 26,000 packets. Many have admitted this was the first time that packets were collected as they are not aware about the recycling of packets.

The Campaign has, in fact open many's mind about 3R and recycling.

Gong Xi Fa Cai 2010

Xi

Come this Saturday, the MBPJ's Chinese New Year Celebration with LA 21 PJ will be on again. Starting from 8pm until 10.30pm, various activities include possession of floral car, vintage cars, dragon dance, school band, marching squad and lions dance as well as stage performance by popular artist, cultural shows, Chinese orchestra, face change and other interesting and fun-filled programmes. Light refreshment will also be served. For the lucky one, you might won prizes ranging from free parking in PJ, plasma TV, Coffee Table book of PJ to other attractive prizes. Everyone and up to 5000 people will be having the chance.

Meet you there on 13th March 2010 at PJ Civic Centre Car park lot.

Children Feeling

I learned a lesson last week. To many, it means so petty but to some few it is so damaging.

Under the Child Friendly City Initiative, we supposed to interview some child candidates last Saturday. The session has to cancel due to lack of response. Many children have other engagement and preferred to be interviewed next date available. However, two girls agreed to come. My staff managed to call those involved and informed them about the cancellation except both the girls. Their phone were not contactable and as the last resort, voice mail was recorded informing the news. Some how rather the message was not through and the girls turned themselves up for interview. They felt disappointed. so do me and others for the breaking down of communication. Some have asked us to issue an official apologies.

The argument is we should treat the children with care and promote atmosphere of welcoming them to participate and contribute towards making PJ a Child Friendly City. If we do not accord them right equity, they will feel on inferior of working under the adult instead of working along the adult. In other word, to respect them as equal partners.

It makes sense. Many of the time, we tend to treat children, the segment of community that need protection and guidance for which many future actions and directions have been for them without their participation. We tend to presume they like this and that or they should do this or not to do that. Very little efforts are spent to consult the children, or ignore their view even early consultation was made. I believe this is the basis instinct of fatherhood or motherhood of adult in protecting the children. Perhaps also the generational and expectation gaps.

In facing the challenges of the days, many social ills involving children and youth cannot be resolved without involving the stakeholders themselves. We should, therefore listen passion, understand deeply, act accordingly and embrace the children thoroughly or else risk of losing the children trust on us. The incident, if not handle with care will bring damage to the yet established Child Council.

Thereby, I have no objection for saying SORRY if necessary and the aggravated parties feel more comfortable.

Good 3R Practices

Last week saw the gathering of Local Authority and agencies officers from all over Malaysia in Holiday Inn, Glemmarie to share and exchange lessons learnt on 3R good practices. Pilot waste management community initiatives funded by SWMC-DANIDA and supported by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government were on displayed and dessiminated to the participants. MBPJ together with our partners, namely Beautiful Gates Disabled Foundation, Justlife, Section 19 Residents Association, Global Environmental Centre (GEC), Centre for Environment, Technology and Development Malaysia (CETDEM) and Ecoknights showcased the outcomes and lessons learnt on our community projects. These include Household Waste Composting, Eco-Enzyme Making, Smart Rangers and Green Award. The projects are participatory in nature and finding waste minimisation solution at source or at the neighbourhood level through capacity building, training and awareness raising. The changing of attitude rather than application of technology is emphasized. We received overwhelming enquiries from other local authorities and community groups for initiating the same programmes.

The Seminar is an end to the pilot experience, but a start for replication process. The trained participants for Household Waste Composting, for instance have tentatively agreed to become mentor to coach others on doing the same. The impact is great with participation from other residents of PJ considering that every participant of the pilot project has reduced an average of 47% of their household waste. The challenge, is however to sustain their momentum and interest, and of course commitment.

3R Community Initiatives

MBPJ was invited to share our experience with participants from other local authorities and agencies last week in implementing 4 community initiatives on waste minimisation and 3R. These include Household Waste Composting, Educating Household in making Eco-Enzyme, Smart Rangers for 3R and Green Awards for Schools in PJ. These initiatives were funded by SWMC-DANIDA and supported by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government.

Realising that waste management is a challenge that weaken the financial and management capability of the Council, applications were made to the Ministry for funding us in carrying out pilot scheme to experience effective ways of reducing the problems of solid waste management.

These initiatives under Local Agenda 21 Petaling Jaya shared common bottom line, namely stakeholders participation, solution at source, inclusiveness and duplicability.

Stakeholders participation is critical to ensure the sustainability of a programme. As stakeholders are involved from the beginning, follow through the whole process and finally claiming ownership over the project, the successful rate for continuity is higher. Most of the time we witness a programmes started with big bang, but quiet down and then led to natural dead because of sustainability and lack of interest amongst the stakeholders. By getting people involved and well trained can also convert the participants as trainers and mentors for replication exercise later. Our Household Waste Composting Initiative for example, managed to recruit 46 project participants as trainers.

Secondly solution at source should also be promoted. While any methods of 3R is welcome, solution at source is the most logical move, and of course the most effective and "humanised". By promoting solution at source also encourage every individual bears personal responsibility on the waste they generated. It is "polluter paid" principle. Similarly, inclusiveness is emphasized in line with the policy of MBPJ in creating an universal design society. Of course, reducing the resources and thus waste from the premises will also mean reduction of transportation and manpower cost of collecting and disposing the waste.

Duplicability is by far the most important factor as this is what the pilot projects are carried out for. While all the projects can be replicated, the continuity is very much based on the human factor. The participants who have benefited from the pilot projects and their willingness to continue as well as to mentor or coach others to further expand the initiatives.

MBPJ simply cannot afford to lost the momentum or else the efforts of pilot project will be wasted.

River Rangers Training

River Rangers is no more exclusively for the officers in rural area, but in urban area as well or else the urban rivers will never be cleaned and improved. This is the message disseminated to the participants of Smart Rangers Training last Saturday at MBPJ. A joint program with State Government of Selangor and GEC. A total of 35 participants from MBPJ, MPSJ and MBSA took part in the 1 day training which included field trip to the source and end of Sungai Penchala. The purpose then is to let participants to see, to feel and to taste the different quality of water. The impact is great as participants started asking why the quality is so much different after the River flowing through urban area of KL and PJ.

Many of them agreed that the answer is relied on residents, our attitude caring about the river. Many have also agreed that while caring for river is important, taking care of our pipe flowing out from our kitchen as well as the drains at our backyard are equally critical. Many forgot about making sure the drains are clean and without pollutant. This is the source of river pollution. Collectively if all individual takes care about their drains, we believe that the rivers do not need special attention. In this instance, we always look for the forest, but ignore the tree.

The participants were taught about rivers and their functions, techniques to monitor and measure quality of water, organise actions to look after the rivers and partnership with others stakeholders. It is an exploratory and educational trip.

It is also part of Local Agenda 21 Petaling Jaya 10th Anniversary Celebration.

Beverage Packets Recycling Campaign

Attempt to break the Malaysia Book of Records for the category of "The largest Collection of Beverage Packages" was announced last Thursday. MBPJ in collaboration with Lions Clubs International District 308B1, Malaysia and Tetra Pak is organising the 1 month Beverage Packets Recycling Campaign starting from 1st Ferburary 2010 to 6th March 2010. The success of the attempt will be announced during the Recycling Carnival to be held on 6th March 2010 at One-Utama Shopping Centre, Petaling Jaya.

It is an on going initiative by Local Agenda 21 MBPJ to promote 3R concept and effective waste management strategies at source. It is a capacity building programme to raise public awareness on reducing the waste and recycling the recyclable items.

Various attractive prizes under the redemption scheme are in offer. Public can claim prizes for bringing in empty packets to the designated centres. Apart from that, public with 30 packets and above are eligible for lucky draw as well.

This will be the first time Local Agenda 21 Petaling Jaya attempting a record. We are doing this in conjunction with the 10th Anniversary celebration of implementing LA 21 in PJ and in Malaysia as well.

This attempt might be the first, but definitely not the last to promote sustainable development. While we prefer to promote sustainable development progressively, at time making a hoo ha might be also good, I presume or else people might be forgetful that LA 21 is still an on going initiative.