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KUCHING: In an effort to tackle plastic pollution, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) has embarked towards zero usage of single-use plastics.
Its Vice Chancellor, Prof Datuk Dr Mohamad Kadim Suaidi revealed that the varsity aims to educate its students and staff on the importance and the negative impacts of single-use plastics.
“ Our efforts is in line with four Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs). Hopefully, this will bring some impact to our community,” he said, adding that the people are living on a borrowed planet and are bpund to keep it clean and halthy.
“ It starts from us, our family, office and hopefully, we can spread to the whole UNIMAS.”
In the 2018, United Nations (UN) Environment’ Single-Use Plastics A Roadmap for Sustainability’ report, it was estimated that between one and five trillion plastic bags were consumed worldwide each year.
The report added that five trillion plastic bags was almost equivalent to 10 million plastic bags a minute. If tied together, they would go around the world seven times every hour and cover an area twice the size of France.
Meanwhile, the studies revealed that plastic bags can take up to thousands of years to decompose and contaminate soil and water, pose ingestion and entanglement hazards to wildlife. To this, Malaysia has set a targer to abolish single-use plastics bag by 2030.
Source from : New Sarawak Tribune
