By Sheeda Fathil
KELANA JAYA, May 4 — A total of 5,000 eco-friendly food containers made using sugarcane fibre and starch cutleries were distributed to the visitors of the Kelana Jaya LRT station Ramadan bazaar, yesterday.
State executive councillor for environment Hee Loy Sian said the initiative was carried out to encourage consumers to stop the use of single-use plastics or polystyrene containers as it is bad for health.
“The effort is to create awareness among both the traders and consumers to disregard the use of single-use plastic bags or food containers.
“We also hope that the visitors of the bazaar would bring their own containers from home to pack the food they bought (at the bazaar),” he said during a plastic-free awareness campaign, here yesterday.
Hee said that plastic-free awareness in the state has reached 80 per cent.
“Selangor will move towards becoming plastic-free by 2025 and we hope that by that time, many people would have ditched using single-use plastics bags and bring their own containers or (reusable) bags when out shopping,” he said.
The state government had enforced a ban on single-use plastics every Saturday effective January 1, 2010, and had extended the ‘No Plastic Bag’ campaign to seven days a week beginning January 2017.
