Reckess Littering by foreign workers!

I REFER to the report “Villagers in Muar don’t want factories” (The Star, Nov 1). Once a tranquil and beautiful town, Muar has now turned into a busy industrial site with hundreds of heavy vehicles entering and leaving the area daily.

But what was more insidious and more revealing was the remark made by one of the villagers that “the drains are clogged because the foreign workers throw their rubbish there”... the more than 1,000 foreign workers “imported” to man the factories.

Read in conjunction with the other news in the same issue like “A heap of landfill woes,” the statement is portentous of the disaster we are going to have on our hands.

Just imagine more than three million foreign workers (and increasing daily) legally and illegally brought into the country to maintain Malaysia as a “low wage paying nation,” and what sort of rubbish mess they are creating.

It’s a daily occurrence that has happened right in front of my house. Foreign workers returning from their 16-hour shift work at a nearby restaurant drinking from plastic bags filled with teh tarik throw the empty bags into the nearest available drain.

Likewise, contract workers at nearby houses under renovation also use the drains for their empty plastic bags and plastic food packages.

No wonder the disease Leptospirosis is spreading like wildfire, with Dengue close on its heels.

Concern over littering by foreign workers