Zero-waste movement gaining momentum in Sabah

Norhayati Yahya shares how she turned plastic bottles into cute vases and pots.

KOTA KINABALU — An environmentally-conscious group aimed at living with zero waste is gaining momentum in Sabah.

Inspired by its founders in Peninsular Malaysia, marine biologist and conservator Ruth Yap took it upon herself to bring the Zero Waste movement to Sabah a year ago.

“Sabah is a very beautiful land. It will be a pity if we do not do something today to protect it for our future generation,” she said.

Calling themselves members of Zero Waste Sabah, the group shares how they to about daily lives doing even the small things that contribute to the cause.

Some bring their own containers when buying takeaway food while there are those who share how they use banana leaves to wrap food and other things.

In less than a year, the Zero Waste Sabah group has garnered over 6,000 members, and the numbers are growing by the day.

She said when she came back to Sabah she saw the problem of waste management and added that she felt powerless as when she spoke to people about it, they would blame the government or others but not themselves.

Having lived and worked in New Zealand before, Yap said she the waste management system there worked well as the local council was able to get the people to segregate their waste.

By end of 2018, she started the Zero Waste Sabah Facebook page and managed to get members to do their part and to get others to adopt the lifestyle.

Yap said the zero waste lifestyle applies the “5R” principles – Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Rot.

She said since adopting these principles, she only throws out trash once a fortnight instead of daily as before.

She said all the trash goes to landfills, including the Kayu Madang landfill which is not too far from the state capital.

“Recently, there were news reports saying that the Kayu Madang landfill will fill up one day and when that happens, our trash will have to be diverted elsewhere,” Yap said.

She believes the Zero Waste Sabah can help the government in this area because it aims to reduce trash going into landfills and incinerators.

Zero Waste Sabah was successfully registered as a non-profit organization under the Registrar of Societies in August 2019.

As a non-profit organization, Zero Waste Sabah depends on public donations to organise zero waste awareness and educational activities, such as public talks, exhibitions and school programs.