PUTATAN: The Putatan District Council has compounded some 400 litterbugs.
Disclosing this yesterday, Putatan District Officer Awang Abdul Ghani Pg Yusoff said the litterbugs were fined between RM50 and RM500 Council per person for the offence.
“This is a large number of people since we have only begun compounding people for littering three months ago,” he said.
Abdul Ghani also said wastes remain a huge problem for the district.
“Everyday, my people collect between 35 tonnes and 50 tonnes of wastes. This is a huge amount,” he told reporters this after Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Yahya Hussin launched the Putatan District Anti-Litter Campaign here yesterday.
Folks residing outside of the Putatan rating area were utilising the garbage facility, thus generating a huge amount of wastes in the district .
Apart from that, the district was also short of facilities such as waste trucks and manpower, he said.
“We only have seven waste trucks right now. We are asking for a few more. We only have a total of 56 workers handling the waste collection,” he said.
Additionally, each truck has to travel to Kayu Madang in Telipok, which according to Abdul Patail, is too far.
“The journey takes our truck four hours to complete.
“We are not making these as excuses for the poor cleanliness level in Putatan. We are conducting various programmes related to anti-littering and have installed three billboards promoting anti-littering. We have also provided 20 large waste bins within the Putatan District,” he said.
At the same time, Abdul Ghani also said the ‘tagal’ system would be adopted for Petagas River.
“It is a two-in-one project whereby we will not only implement it to help increase fish population at the river, but also to raise awareness on the importance of river cleanliness and to stop outsiders and people residing along the river bank from dumping waste into the river,” he said.