By Suhaila Shahrul Annuar
KUALA LANGAT, Feb 1 — The Kuala Langat Municipal Council (MPKL) has become the first local council in Selangor to use cutting-edge beach cleaning machinery.
KDEB Waste Management Sdn Bhd (KDEBWM) Corporate Service senior general manager Ahmad Rizal Mohd Daud said the ‘walk beach comber’ and ‘glutton electric litter picker’ machinery has been used to clean Pantai Morib and Pantai Baru Morib.
“This is our pilot project with MPKL involving a beach area of 4,400 metres. The ‘walk beachcomber’ machinery is capable of cleaning 670 square metres of the coastal area within an hour and takes about eight hours a day for the entire beach.
“This is compared to manual cleaning work which requires at least six workers to clean the whole coastal area within the same period. The technology managed to reduce workforce and operational costs,” he said after launching the cleaning machinery in an event at Pantai Baru Morib yesterday.
Ahmad Rizal added that KDEBWM collected nearly 10 tonnes of garbage around the beach in a month.
“We will review the efficiency of this pilot project and should it produce satisfying results, we plan to expand the technology to other local councils,” he said.
Meanwhile, MPKL president Dato’ Amirul Azizan Abd Rahim said the local council has been getting multiple complaints about garbage issues in the resort area.
“Therefore, the use of modern machinery is part of our effort to make visitors more comfortable spending time with their families by the beach.
“As of now, we only use the machines to clean two beaches and probably it will be expanded to Pantai Kelanang and Pantai Cunang after this,” he said.
In a related development, Amirul Azizan said some 47,495 portable bins will be distributed for free to taxpayers and registered residents in the Kuala Langat district this month.
He said the 120 litres capacity waste bins will be distributed in stages until April, involving a total cost of RM5.36 million.
“MPKL will distribute the waste bins to taxpayers and registered residents in Kuala Langat according to zones and the process will be monitored by MPKL council members for each zone.
“This effort is aligned with the state government to help keep Kuala Langat clean,” he said.
