Eco Top Trumps: Malaysia
I found Malaysia to be the greenest place we’ve been yet - both in lush forest and environmentally!
I could sum up our 10 days in Malaysia as time spent in cafes and restaurants! In Melaka it was because our friend Kitson (who lives there) was on a mission to feed us every Malaysian delicacy in the 36 hours we had with him. In George Town, Penang, we were escaping the sticky heat, ducking into air-conned cafes continuously! And in Kuala Lumpur, maybe an unpopular opinion, but we didn’t really find much else to do that didn’t cost a bomb.
Single use plastic - 6
On the whole (bearing in mind these places may not have been the spot your typical Malay got their coffee) we were pleasantly surprised with the lack of single use plastic. No one batted an eyelid when we got the metal straws out, with one barista even offering to clean ours with his own straw bush.
We did however, see a lot of the plastic bag drinks we’d seen in the Philippines. Often people bought a bag (with a straw) of frozen fruit juice or milkshake, drinking it as it melted. This was probably the thing I saw most contributing to litter on the streets (which to be fair was minimal!). I wrote a little about these drinks in my Philippines blog post - I can’t really make my mind up with these. On the one hand it seems to be less plastic than a bottle, but then bottles can be reused!
One of many coffees drunk in George Town! Repping those metal straws.
Ease of recycling - 7
It was very easy to find places to recycle, with bins for waste and recycling, dotted around everywhere. This was particularly the case in very busy spots; up Penang Hill, in the parks of KL and at bus and train stations. Even though we saw a lot of opportunities to do so, I’m not sure how many people I saw actually recycling. We didn’t see rubbish, so it must have been put somewhere!
One person I did see recycle, thanks Sam for letting me snap you doing the most mundane tasks!
Clean environment - 8
I’m not sure anywhere will ultimately compare to Japan’s cleanliness, but Malaysia gave it a good go. The streets were always immaculate. We spent a lot of time on buses travelling up and down the country, hardly seeing any rubbish along the roads (just think of the sides of UK motorways!).
The very clean streets of Melaka!
The place I actually saw the most rubbish was at the Hindu spiritual site of the Batu Caves. For about a minute this really puzzled me, considering it was seen as such a holy site. Before long I realised how this rubbish came to be there - witnessing very intuitive monkeys opening bins, eating the leftover food of tourists and worshippers, and then discarding the remains!
Sorry for the grainiest photo (it’s a screenshot from a video) but we caught these cheeky monkeys in the act!
Local attitude - 7
Considering the cafes we visited weren’t always the ones all the locals went to, I don’t feel like they can be a full judge of public attitude. However, even when we went to more local places, I’d say we saw less single use plastic than in Japan or the Philippines. Although I said I didn’t see people recycling, I also didn’t ever witness anyone littering. Plastic bags weren’t forced upon us and I saw this sign through a shop window!
Taken through a window whilst walking by - ‘Skip the straw’!
Final thoughts
Malaysia wins so far in total points - 28 out of 40! It also seemed to have the most consistent scores. There was no area that was really shocking, but equally none that were 10/10! It seems to have the right attitude going with plastic, it just needs to get rid of those single use plastic bag drinks! In conclusion, Malaysia was clean and very green!