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Five days have passed since Kuala Lumpur was inundated by flooding and it is still recovering from the aftermath.
The waste contractors, who have the unenviable task of cleaning up the capital city, told StarMetro that the job was “not done.”
Waste accumulated along the city’s drains, including monsoon drains.
Over the weekend, Alam Flora and private waste contractors were seen cleaning the city’s drains.
Looking at photos of debris-filled flood retention ponds, Kuala Lumpur Mayor Datuk Nor Hisham Ahmad Dahlan described them as “shocking.”
The Director of Federal Territories for the Solid Waste Management and Public Cleaning Corporation, Mohd Zahir Shari, said clean-up work by private contractors hired by the Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID) was ongoing.
“There is no doubt that the recent floods were caused by excessive rainfall with some areas registering between 100mm and 200mm, but we cannot ignore the overwhelming debris that was pulled from drains and rivers,” he added.
Authorities described the flash flood Thursday afternoon as “unprecedented” and “extremely rare,” but the incident itself revealed some of the bad habits of the city’s people.
Evidence of his indiscriminate littering and lack of civility reached Batu’s retention pond in Jalan Ipoh.
Tons of waste consisting of plastic cups, bottles and bags, masks and other forms of garbage ended up in the pond after the downpour.
They presented a shocking image that can only summarize human indifference.
Many questioned why this happened, as the Kuala Lumpur City Council (DBKL) had banned the use of plastic and polystyrene packaging.
“There should be less garbage with all public outreach programs and educational campaigns.
“I am shocked by the amount of garbage that you see in the photographs that are shown to me,” said Nor Hisham.
A DID spokesperson claimed that the amount of garbage was getting more rather than less.
“To be honest, it is quite normal to see mountains of garbage ending up in retention ponds, particularly after a downpour, but (the garbage) should be reduced, not increased.
“It is happening in all flood retention ponds, not just in Batu.
“This is the result of people indiscriminately dumping garbage directly into drains, which ends up in monsoon drains, rivers and eventually the sea.
“We normally intercept the garbage, which ends up at the collection points where we have our gross contaminant traps, log barriers and garbage rakes. Then our contractors will clean it up.
“But in the case of diverting the flood water, it all ends up in the retention pond and that’s why there is a lot of garbage there,” he said.
Trash and silt also end up in the Nanyang, Wahyu and Delima flood mitigation ponds.
The Batu and Jinjang retention ponds are part of a multi-million ringgit flood mitigation system built to prevent Kuala Lumpur’s rivers from overflowing and the Klang River basin from overflowing.
The system that has been in operation since 2009 diverts additional water from Sungai Gombak and Sungai Keroh to the Batu and Jinjang retention ponds.
On Thursday, the system was activated around 2 p.m. to divert water from Sungai Gombak to retention ponds, and then the water was returned to the river after the rain stopped.
However, large amounts of trash and sediment ended up in the retention ponds.
“Cleanup efforts will take time, but the amount of garbage is also stressing the system and costs money,” the spokesperson said.
Alam Flora workers who were deployed to clean up the city over the recent weekend complained of garbage, especially plastic, in almost every corner of the city’s drains and sewers.
Private contractors cleaning the River of Life (RoL) project site at the lookout in the Medan Pasar area said more and more plastics were emerging and getting stuck along the riverbanks.
“The thing about floods is that when they start, there is no way to stop them.
“And with the water comes garbage, fish and even snakes,” said a worker doing clean-up work at the RoL site.
“The only thing left after the rain is the garbage,” he added.
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