#034: Ikat Tepi 2: Death and No Rebirth
All that hangs will fall.
Part two of my Ikat Tepi series takes a look at the wastefulness of this single-use plastics way of life here, and how some will inevitably end up on the ground, left without a care in the world. Not putting the blame on any one person, but rather to all of us, collectively as citizens of this city, country, planet. We need to do better. At the very least, use the damn rubbish/trash bins!
While photographing all the hanging ikat tepi's that I cataloged in the first part of this series, I also documented the ones that were thrown carelessly everywhere. Found in all odd places and some even right next to a trash bin! but not in it, and some plainly visible, strewn in the middle of the streets. Left for dead. You probably won't see these on the more tourist-friendly, aesthetically pleasing, cleaned up main streets of KL, but just look one street beyond, check the back alleys, and you'll see these plastic pieces in all its glory.
I did a little bit of googling and discovered that, at present, there is no uniform approach in Malaysia to address single-use plastics! And to highlight where we're at, in 2018, Malaysia came in as 8th among the top ten countries with mismanaged plastic waste in the world. A study estimated that Malaysia had produced 0.94 million tons of mismanaged plastic wastes, of which 0.14 to 0.37 million tons may have been washed into the oceans.* :(
But we now have a roadmap to get us on track to try and tackle this socio-environmental issue! Hurray!?
This new roadmap document entitled "Malaysia Roadmap Towards Zero Single-Use Plastics 2018-2030", was published by The Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change (MESTECC) in 2018. According to this document: "The problem of plastic waste in Malaysia is driven by the habit of littering and unsustainable consumption habits." Go figure. “The recycling industry in Malaysia focuses on materials that can be easily collected and has high value. Due to this factor, only waste materials like transparent PET bottles are being recycled in mass volume. Other waste materials (i.e. food packaging, polystyrene products, and straws) that do not have recycling value are almost never recycled due to lack of technology or business viability.” And that ladies and gentlemen, is the sad truth of it all.
The Malaysia Plastic Pact by MESTECC is also a new development based on the zero waste blueprint, and it'll be interesting to see what comes out of this pact and how they intend to put a halt to the mass use of single-use plastic in the country. Time will tell, but in the meantime, ikat tepi will still run around wild and free.
I'll end this post by saying, please be more mindful of where you discard your trash, and especially your single-use plastics. Not everything can, and or will be recycled, but we can at the very least put our trash away appropriately.
Death and no rebirth… because single-use plastic, once used, has no afterlife… :(
Lots of trashy photos ahead. You’ve been warned.
*Malaysia Roadmap Towards Zero Single-Use Plastics 2018-2030 https://www.mestecc.gov.my/web/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Malaysia-Roadmap-Towards-Zero-Single-Use-Plastics-2018-20302.pdf
All photos were taken with the Fujifilm X100S.
