Remember our post on the air pollution problem in Kedah? Unfortunately, there are more news of smokey conundrums in Malaysia’s rice bowl state: a fire broke out at a rubbish dump in Jitra on 1st February 2020.

This wasn’t the first rubbish dump to go up in blazes in Kedah—a landfill in Bedong, Sungai Petani was similarly caught on fire on 20 January 2020, with firefighters struggling for more 18 hours to put out most of the flames, a task made more difficult since most of the burning waste was plastic. A week later, the fire brigade was still working to control the damage caused by the smouldering waste.

It’s disheartening to continue receiving such updates; late last year, we published a post on the air pollution issue at Cinta Sayang, Kedah, a problem that appears to be primarily due to open burning of waste plastic at processing sites, which in turn adversely affects the quality of life for residents in the area, especially health-wise. While merely a preliminary view, do give the post a read—it provides an insight as to how serious the situation has gotten and how important it is to solve it (although nobody should need any further convincing at this rate, to be perfectly honest).

#KhorReports #airpollution #wasteplastic #wasteplasticburning