Environment

The year ends with a statistics of dengue cases in Miri, with almost 90% decrease of dengue cases for the year 2011 compared to last year. The number of dengue cases are less than 10 cases per month by the end of November, with 93 cases compared to 746 cases in 2010. It is not known if these are confirmed cases or suspected cases.

When compared to 2007-2009 figures, 93 cases seemed fairly normal as the (missing) statistics of 2010 spike of 746 cases seemed like an anomaly.

2010	746
2011 (November)	93

See 2007-2009 figures

Source

It's been about a year since the ban of plastic bags everyday of the week. The ban of plastics are set in place to create awareness among the public on the dangers of expansive use of plastic, reduce or minimize the plastic usage starting from shopping complexes by using recyclable shopping bags and encourage public from various levels to participate in environmental awareness programme.

That is the idea. The reality however, is that I still see people resorting to those plastic trash bag packs sold at convenience stores for their trash. The blame on the plastic bags causing pollution in the sea and rivers are not justified either - this is purely as a result of irresponsible people throwing them into the sea and not the plastic bag's fault. What about the use of paper bags or biodegradable plastic bags? Or what about the excessive use of plastics on manufactured products?

It is worth noting that the many, many booklets of parking coupons issue by the Miri Council itself are made of questionable material as well. How biodegradable are the parking coupons, and are the silver scratching material toxic?

Is this campaign actually working? What are your thoughts on it?

All eyes on Canada Hill, recent heavy rain has authorities on high alert for possible landslides in five hotspots. The authorities are keeping a close watch on five ‘landslide hotspots’ at Canada Hill.

The five 'landslide hotspots' under close watch was not disclosed but the residents there had been notified and are advised to be ready to move out once an emergency arose.

As a precautionary measure, the Miri Resident’s Office and divisional natural disaster operation rooms were now on standby mode round the clock.

The residents living at the foothills of Canada Hill have been reminded to be on the alert, especially at night. They are told to be wary of any Earth movements and other things such as the appearance of visible cracks and shifting of vegetation, they should evacuate.

Source

A blogger reminiscents about Miri City in his post, on how the city today is compared to the past how the city has basically forgotten much of its its history and some of its citizens' less than stellar attitudes towards tourists from neighboring countries, not to mention some of the somewhat mediocre infrastructures.

He puts it best here, and I quote him:

"There is so little around us to remind us of its golden glorious history and the bad past when ambitious egomaniac Japs ruled the Asian region and the many past heroes and founding fathers of the ex-town seem to be conveniently forgotten and unrecognised. Case in point: just take a walk to the oldest Mission school in the city and you will soon realise not a single street is named after its Asian founder or the many pioneers who established the first oldest educational institution."

More at link.

What're your thoughts? Please comment.

Miri's attempt to create a Malaysian record in eco-friendly shopping on May 1 will come as a big start to promote greater environmental awareness among city folks.

Miri Mayor Lawrence Lai said the Miri City Council (MCC) had already outlined plans to encourage the people to use less plastics or other materials that could adversely effect the environment.

"We want it to be a memorable event not just for the sake of creating a record but also to eventually make Miri an environmental-friendly city," he told reporters at a reception for the Miri Marriott Resort and Spa charity run here.

More here.

My take:

A better start would be to get manufacturers to reduce their use of plastics in their everyday products, which would automatically produce LESS trash. At least plastic bags are useful, product packaging trash isn't.

What would people use to wrap trash in without plastic bags from their grocery purchase? Thats right - they'd go out to buy MORE readily-available plastic bags to wrap their trash in, defeating the whole purpose of reducing plastics from our environment.

A better solution is to use paper bags, or biodegradable plastic bags, which is certainly not the case here.

This is just another attempt at record breaking & having an "environmentally friendly image", but offering no real actual solution to protect our environment. (The past few months of open burning, thick haze & "ashflake fall" is testament to this hypocrisy).

See "No plastic Bag Campaign"

See also " Why No Plastic Bag Day is Flawed."