Historic Sabah Plastic Neutral launch

Published on: Sunday, March 07, 2021

By: Kan Yaw Chong

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Splendid Semporna-Bodgaya, part of the Coral Triangle.

MARCH 8, 2021 marks a defining moment in Sabah’s history – the launching of Sabah Plastic Neutral.

As the name suggests, the idea is to liberate Sabah from the scourge of plastic pollution, believe it or not, in five years!

“To kickstart the initiative, we plan to mount a pilot project with Kota Kinabalu City Hall (DBKK) which encompasses four districts, with a promise to Mayor Noorliza Awang Alip that within two years or a maximum three years, we are going to make those four districts completely plastic neutral, in terms of our discussion with DBKK,” said Simon Christopher, who co-founded Blu Hope Sabah with Monica Chin.

“But the over-arching ambition of the plan is make Sabah plastic neutral in five years and that means 27 districts and that has been given all clear by the higher authorities.

“So in five years, Sabah will be the first State in Malaysia to be completely plastic neutral,” Simon told Daily Express in an interview last Thursday.

Come Monday, we shall witness the launching of an unprecedented event designed to rid one of the gravest threats to planet earth – an astonishing mass of plastic pollution calculated at 8.3 billion tonnes by American marine engineer, Jenna Jambeck, and rapidly escalating towards infamy “planet plastic”, none of which biodegradable since its mass industrial production began some 65 years ago.

Why start in Sabah

Actually there exists a Global Plastic Neutral Challenge platform and Sabah Plastic Neutral is but part of that bigger world picture, Simon noted.

Why pick Sabah, why start in Sabah, why not anywhere else in Malaysia which would make it a national project?

Simon singled out not just his own conclusion but the international belief in Sabah’s top dog great biodiversity and his hunch that now is the deadline to mount viable protection before it’s too late.

“The rhino is gone, what used to be a robust presence of dugongs off Mantanani are all gone, its corals blown to bits by fish bombers, left with plastic bottle litters all over its bottom,” Simon and Monica echoed each other’s sad personal experience.

“Why start with Sabah? Because Sabah still has more biodiversity than anywhere else,” he said.

No Sabah, no Coral Triangle

for Malaysia

“Of all 13 states, Malaysia qualifies to be part of the Coral Triangle (an extraordinary global centre of marine biodiversity where only 1.6pc of ocean areas inhabits 76pc of 500 reef building coral species of the world) solely because of Sabah,” Simon noted.

“The easiest way to explain to people is if you look at the map, the East coast of Sabah is styled dark blue while the rest of Sabah is light blue and that dark blue represents biodiversity – meaning deeper water upwelling of nutrients around upwelling in locations like Sipadan so that the whole East Coast of Sabah is the reason why Malaysia can qualify as part of the Coral Triangle.

“Without Sabah, Malaysia cannot qualify because without that exceptional biodiversity, Malaysia cannot qualify.

“So that’s why Sabah is the most important piece of real estate biodiversity-wise than anywhere else in the planet and that really is the case – a 4pc of world surface areas made up of six countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, Timor Leste, Philippines, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea) that was launched in 2009 in Bali by the leaders of these six countries.”

Overfishing – ‘the biggest threat’ to top dog pocket of biodiversity

“I still remember what President Dr Jose Horta Ramos’ answer was when asked what is the biggest threat to the Coral Triangle, he said: Overfishing!”

The irony is out of the six, Timor Leste, the tiniest state of them all, was first and only so far that had embraced the plastic neutral initiative, where Simon played a role and only now, Sabah says “yes”.

“Ramos is right because overfishing is food and once you remove all the fish then the whole Coral Triangle dies and two-thirds of the earth’s surface are blue oceans which actually create more air and water than the rest of our planet and it’s actually the world’s life support system which is why Unesco thinks it’s important,” Simon argued

He cited Dr Sylvia Earle, founder of Mission Blue, who called for a focussed protection of these vital “blue hope spots” on the planet by “uniting a global coalition to inspire an upwelling of public awareness”.

A ‘defining moment’ for

the future of Sabah

“So really Blu Hope Sabah and Sabah Plastic Neutral is a story which defines Sabah moving forward protecting its resources, protecting its biodiversity and most importantly, protecting its people but without biodiversity the planet ‘mati’ (dies) and that’s the reality,” Simon explained.

So after mind mapping a lengthy interview, Daily Express sized up what Sabah Plastic Neutral is – not just a project to clear plastic pollution in five years but is actually part of a global coalition inspired by Dr Sylvia Earle.

Simon says so.

Big funders: Show proof of a

‘willing coalition’

“Sabah Plastic Neutral is that coalition, it’s a coalition,” he insisted.

“Each one of us on our own right, on our own merits, are very strong but together we form Sabah Plastic Neutral.

“It’s everyone, from DBKK (Kota Kinabalu City Hall), Mayor Nooiliza to Datuk Masidi Manjun (Minister of Local Government and Housing), all the different departments, in fact six to seven ministries.

“So we cannot go to one Ministry and say: do this. It represents the biggest inter-ministerial coalition. This is the new Sabah,” Simon claimed.

But actually Blu Hope Sabah has no choice but to build a big coalition because the big funders demand show proof, Simon conceded.

“Yes, Sabah has the biodiversity so what we are doing is we are creating a platform where Sabah is the first to participate and there are big funds from the Norwegian Government which says ‘we want to protect these last pockets of biodiversity by tackling plastic pollution, and the British Government’s Blue Planet Fund’.

“So the Norwegian Government has just launched a 200 million euro fund to tackle plastic pollution in Asean. The British Government has just launched a 500 million pound Sterling Blue Ocean Fund to protect the oceans.

“Everyone is starting to realise that if you want to get those funds, you have to say: ‘This is the location and we have enough willing coalition from Government down to people saying: we want to protect our back garden,” Simon revealed the exacting pre-requisite funding access and support.

Content of Sabah Plastic Neutral

So the riddle behind the event launch settled, I pressed Simon and Monica what’s the ‘event content’.

They provided this list on their March 8 event Webinar Programme in conjunction with Commonwealth Day.

- The story of Blu Hope

- Fish-Bomb-Free-Sabah

- WWF-Malaysia Shark Showcase

- Blu Hope South Pacific

- Launch of Water is Life/ Sabah

Schools

- Launch of ReWild Carbon/ Plastic

App

ReWild App – The big ‘game changer’

A big problem with plastic pollution is the lack of accounting at source.

This issue is going to be reckoned with.

“The big game changer of all is our ReWild Carbon/Plastic App,” Simon noted.

“This is where Sir David Attenborough is backing us – our ReWild App means all your plastics in your fridge which you throw away right now and give it to DBKK that will end up in Kayu Madang landfill, some end up maybe in Pulau Gaya.

“But what the ReWild App will do is instead of throw away, you scan the bar code on the back on your phone which will recognise it and that’s going to be a traceable event and that will connect you all the way back to the producing companies which are now making plastics but have no business plan of accounting for plastics.

“They sell it and then you dispose it and the additional cost is the environment but now there is this thing called producer responsibility which is brought in by WWF – Environmental producer responsibility (EPR), a strategy that adds the environmental cost of a product throughout its life cycle, which is why it is so important,” Simon said.

No single ‘silver bullet’

“So the content of it all is a portfolio of all these things all under one heading called Sabah Plastic Neutral and the Sabah Plastic Neutral is part of a bigger global Plastic Neutral Challenge.

“These are all the things on the ground – different movements which in their own, will be plastic neutral. The point is you can’t have a silver bullet, so it’s multiple, synchronised efforts,” Simon said.

“For example, we are going to engage with the government from a policy or decision making point of view to ban single use plastics, which will not happen overnight, probably three years. We got to ban styrofoam. If Selangor can do it, we can.”

“We need to create educational awareness about plastics. We need to get people to realise plastics has to be kept, it cannot escape into the environment plus the most important thing of all – stop people throwing away.

“To those who don’t allow plastic to escape – there’s incentive: give them money for it.”

Amazing water filters to reduce

plastic bottles from schools

But what is one of the ugly visual plastic scourge?

Discarded mineral plastic bottles that litter our landscape!

“So one of our main stories is education. By June, we are going to bring clean drinking water to 100 schools. We are going to the most rural frontier schools such as Menumbok, Beluran etc where the teachers and kids have health problem because of the water. They are going to have access to clean drinking water.

“So we are taking care of the water problem with long lasting Orisa Water Filters that are fitted with effective backwashing system which uses purified water to clean the membrane with no risk of contamination from external sources.

“That’s the most important thing. We can do that very quickly with a lot of money. We got two in our homes now, it’s quite easy, it doesn’t require electricity, we got a blanket agreement with the Sabah Education Director to do the whole of Sabah as quickly as possible.

“So that is probably the most important story. We’ll be out there in the next two to three weeks going to Menumbok, Beluran and introducing this solution – all part of Sabah Plastic Neutral. We are starting this new initiative to start access to clean drinking water.

“Talk to the principals, every single school right now has no access to clean drinking water so they have to use plastic bottles but with the Orisa Filter System, it means now they can have clean water from their streams and wells so that they don’t have to buy plastic bottled water,” Simon elaborated.

US$ to make Sabah’s world’s

first fish-bomb-free location

But fish bombing is one of the most long-standing destruction of marine biodiversity.

So this maybe the last hope from Blu Hope for putting it to bed at last, through the Fish-Bomb-Free-Sabah project.

“This is about the future of Sabah,” Simon said.

“What happens next is we have Fish-Bomb-Free –Sabah. The really good news is we are going to get funding from America now to deploy first – 50 Fish Bomb Centres across Sabah and that is 250 sensors which means the whole of Sabah will be the first location where you cannot fish bomb anymore because we will hear you.

“Within a millisecond you will be heard but if we are going to stop fish bombing it means no food and what we are saying is we are going to give you an alternative fund – fish bomb alternative livelihood , the money is already coming, with an additional funding from the US already confirmed, expanding the Sabah SFB Malaysia’s range by an extra 50sq km or about 50 more sensors, with Blu Hope aiming to fund the additional 200 sensors towards making Sabah the world’s first truly Fish-Bomb-Free location alongside Sabah Plastic Neutral within five year,” Simon asserted.

The ambition: Global circular economy

“So the whole thing is part of it and each one is a centre of gravity where interventions are going to happen that contribute to Sabah becoming plastic neutral,” he promised.

“There are eight billion people on earth, all throwing their wastes away. So we got to stop that, we got to stop that. Sir David Attenborough has said it: We got to stop that because it’s so unnatural in nature.

“You look at the natural systems, they don’t work like that, we got to go circular, creating a global circular system. It’s a global platform, a 10-year plan. We start in Sabah, the ambition is to make a global circular economy,” Simon concluded.