About 100 volunteers armed with gloves, litter pickers and garbage bags spread out across Pulau Gazumbo and collected more than 800kg of waste from the uninhabited islet in under two hours.
Located off the eastern coast of Penang island near the Penang Bridge, the 3ha islet is surrounded by shallow waters and seagrass beds, playing an important ecological role as a habitat for marine life.
Among the items hauled away were plastic bottles, food wrappers, spent firework tubes, torn fishing nets, old ropes, polystyrene packaging and rubber slippers — much of it washed ashore by sea currents.
The “Plogclean on Gazumbo” cleanup was organised by the Penang Island City Council’s (MBPP) Urban Services Department, involving members of the Penang Youth Development Corporation, Green Educators Workgroup, dental and nursing trainees as well as MBPP staff.
The rubbish piling up on the island’s shores is a reminder of how easily waste travels and where it ends up. Environmentalists have long warned that plastic pollution poses a serious threat to fragile ecosystems.
Lightweight plastics can drift long distances before settling on remote shores, where they may entangle marine animals or break down into microplastics that enter the food chain.
Source: The Star
