“It starts with us” M’sian Spends His 31st Birthday Picking Up Trash Around Cyberjaya Lake

While many of us would spend our birthdays treating ourselves or hanging out with friends and family, one Malaysian man decided to spend his special day giving back to the environment by cleaning up trash near a lake in Cyberjaya.

A man by the name of Najib Towy took to Facebook to share that he was celebrating his birthday a little differently this year by giving back to a community that doesn’t have much. “[I decided] to pick up trash all around the Selangor Cyber Valley Lake (Tasik Utara SCV) area.”

“The lake area is the best for relaxing, going fishing, having picnics and leisure activities. Even the sunset is the best. But perhaps due to the lack of monitoring (or maybe the lake isn’t open to public use?), a lot of rubbish has been abandoned there.”

Najib stressed that he wasn’t blaming anyone for the accumulated rubbish that was scattered all over the lake area except for the authorities who were actually tasked with ensuring that these public areas are maintained clean. “The responsibility of maintaining the cleanliness is taught by religion but must also be practised early from home.”

He added that he saw visitors come by early in the morning with a basket to pick up rubbish and applauded the citizens for their intention but reminded the public to not forget to take the trash with them as it could attract unwanted attention from animals such as birds, cranes, dogs and monitor lizards.

“I’m very satisfied with today,” shared Najib in his post. “Hopefully, I can make this a monthly or weekly occurrence.” He also shared that he found several peculiar things while cleaning up the area. Aside from the usual rubbish, he also found urine in a bottle, baby soap, diapers, pomade containers, umbrellas, and worst of all, polystyrene.

“Please take care of our environment. Don’t throw garbage everywhere. If you want to go out for a picnic, make a habit out of bringing a plastic garbage bag along with you so throw out your own rubbish and bring it back home with you to dispose of it properly.”

Speaking to WORLD OF BUZZ, Najib said that he actually started this initiative of cleaning up the lakes around Cyberjaya last year during the CMCO. “I would go during the weekend with my cat and I saw that there is actually no maintenance or proper trash bins to dispose of rubbish. Cleaning up rubbish wasn’t an activity that I did often until my birthday when I decided that I was going to make this a monthly activity.”

When asked what he thinks can be done to raise awareness about taking care of the environment around us, he said, “I believe it all starts with education. All of us play an important role in educating our family and friends not to throw rubbish in inappropriate places. It starts with us and we slowly educate those who are close to us. It is a continuous process but slowly and surely, the message and awareness will come.”

“Love nature. After all, it’s the beautiful free things that we often take for granted.”

Well, we couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Kudos to Najib for being the environmental guardian we all should strive to be! What do you guys think of this? 

Also read: Environmental Ministry On The Lookout For SPM Student Who Threw Books Into River