Sunday, January 31, 2010

Anti-Plastic Bag Campaign - Mac 2009 -


In conjunction with Earth Day 2009, SIFE MMU has collaborated with MayaLovesNature foundation to organize Anti-Plastic Bag Campaign. MayaLovesNature was founded by the talented young Malaysian actress, Maya Karin. Nowadays, we are threatened by all sorts of contamination to our environment, and plastic bag is one of the major sources that could lead to environmental problems. To address this problem, we thought that it is best to start with primary school students.

The main objective of this program is to promote and raise awareness and solutions about the current environmental issues through the involvement of schools, teachers, students as well as the local media.

We, together with MayaLovesNature foundation had cooperated with three chosen primary schools in Klang Valley area. The schools include Sekolah Rendah Taming Jaya, at Seri Kembangan, Sekolah Rendah Bandar Tun Hussein Onn2, at Cheras dan Sekolah Rendah Seri Selangor, at USJ Subang Jaya.

Students from these three schools played a proactive role whereby they were asked to collect as many plastic bags as they can from home. Those bag plastics are then accumulated in their respective schools. Then, SIFE volunteers together with the students tied and rolled those plastic bags into one giant ball. Schools compete to produce the largest and heaviest giant ball. At the end of this program, three giant balls were successfully ‘created’ and were sent to the recycling centre.

The finale of this program was held at Stadium Bukit Jalil on the 18th of April, 2009. Students and teachers from the schools gathered at the stadium as early as 8.30 am. The ceremony was officiated by Maya Karin herself, followed by a brief demonstration of the ‘creation’ of the giant ball by students of each school with the help of SIFE volunteers. While waiting for the results, mini-sports day was held for the students and teachers. After all the balls had been weighed by the recycling centre officials, Sekolah Rendah Seri Selangor, Subang Jaya was announced as the winner, with their ball weighing at approximately 40kgs.

In conclusion, it was a successful program and we believe that we managed to achieve our objectives of instilling awareness among the students about the importance of caring about our environment.


by Lina Kassim