Cleanliness is a state of purity, clarity, and precision. – Suze Orma, Personal Financial Guru
Marie Kondo, a Japanese organising consultant and author in her famous maxim said, “The objective of cleaning is not just to clean, but to feel happiness living within that environment.”
All religions propagate and teach their followers to practise cleanliness.
Islam, for example, places so much emphasis and importance on cleanliness as it is considered to be a part of faith. Therefore, cleanliness is an essential part of Islamic life. In fact, our beloved Prophet SAW said, “Cleanliness is half the faith.”
In the Holy Quran Allah Almighty says, “Allah does not intend to inconvenient you, but He intends to purify you and perfect His favour to you, so that you may give thanks.” (Quran, 5:6).
But it seems we are still far behind in terms of cleanliness compared to other countries. Just have a peek at our public toilets and objectively evaluate the level of cleanliness in the streets and at home.
We are now in 2019, not 1919, but our standard of cleanliness leaves much to be desired.
Our mindsets haven’t changed much despite great efforts by various quarters to make us value cleanliness.
Why do we fail miserably in this aspect compared to, say, the Japanese and Koreans?
Cleanliness which is taught from year one and throughout school life, seems not effective.
I have observed some of those driving shining BMWs don’t even have the positive habits as some of them throw rubbish out of their car windows without feeling shame.
Despite being just one year shy of 2020, the target year of being a developed nation, some things never change in Malaysia – in this case, cleanliness among its citizens.
According to Minister of Housing and Local Government Datuk Zuraida Kamaruddin, about 60 percent of Malaysia’s 32 million people don’t dispose of their rubbish correctly.
We are in the 21st century, but our mindsets are still in the 19th century. Our facilities and infrastructures might be first class, but our mentality is certainly third class.
Zuraida said that this happens although ample garbage bins are provided to fulfil the task.
“In developed nations, people keep their rubbish in their pockets before disposing of them into the nearest bin.
“What we need right now is a culture where we look for rubbish bins and not the other way around. Malaysians should take it upon themselves to advice people who litter.
“This is a new approach that we want to bring about. If there is no culture of advising one another, the country will never be clean,” she said.
Malaysia has not been seen in a positive light when it comes to proper waste management and cleanliness. It’s really a shame to see some Malaysians simply throwing rubbish everywhere even where there are rubbish bins.
Let’s change our negative and lazy attitude and show good examples to our kids.
Is it true that not enough of the general public has accepted the culture of not throwing rubbish wherever they like? Where did we go wrong? Is it the education system or the upbringing at home? Do we have to teach Malaysians where and how to throw rubbish?
No wonder Zuraida expressed her frustration at litterbugs and waste separation programmes. The level of recycling was 17.5 percent in 2016, 21 percent in 2017 and 24.6 percent in 2018. It is targeted to rise to 30 percent by 2020.
One of the best ways to check which countries are the cleanest in the world is by looking into the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), a project developed by Yale University and Columbia University.
The top ten cleanest countries are Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Slovenia, Spain, Portugal, Estonia, Malta and France.
According to EPI, “Sweden is known for its policies on recycling trash – the country is a master at recycling. It is so good at recycling trash that it imports trash from other countries in order to keep its incredibly effective recycling system running.”
It added, Sweden is one of the most beautiful places on earth, with garbage-free streets, minimal air pollution, and there are sanitary facilities everywhere you go.
Whoever has been to Japan will definitely agree that Japan is one of the cleanest countries that Malaysians should emulate. The Japanese are not only known for their positive attributes and traits, but in keeping their towns and cities clean.
The cities in particular are extremely well-looked after. Graffiti is rare; people seldom throw trash on the ground. When it comes to public cleanliness, one thing is for sure: Japanese cities habitually shine.
In Japan there is definitely a prevailing idea that clean is good. Children are taught to clean their own schools, toilets, and ritualized to clean shinkansen. It is the established culture of having everything clean that makes Japanese homes, cities and towns spick and span.
Unlike the Japanese, we expect others to take care of our waste. We think it’s not our business to keep our public toilets, town and cities clean because we have the wrong notion that there are people who are paid to that. What kind of creature are we?
The Japanese have been taught that they should take responsibility for their own mess and take home any garbage that they create to dispose of.
One thing obvious in Japanese cities is you don’t see public trash cans. But definitely there is no problem with that. In our case, even if there are rubbish bins right under our noses, we still prefer to throw rubbish indiscriminately. What’s wrong with us? Some of us still choose to throw away rubbish without feeling a twinge of shame.
When I was in Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto a few years back, what really impressed me were people sweeping trash around their houses, buildings, shops, and places of employment.
These are not building maintenance workers, but shopkeepers and office workers including those wearing neckties.
Back home, I pity street sweepers who have to clean rubbish discarded by others. Every morning on my way to campus, I often see rubbish collectors gathering rubbish thrown away by road users including those driving expensive, big cars.
In our country, we have so many public trash cans meant to discourage people from simply throwing stuffs on the ground.
Some Malaysians simply don’t have good manners. They are not concerned about the environment.
I was also informed that the Japanese are regularly invited to clean high traffic areas of the city such as near train stations. Apart from that, they are bound to be asked to join regularly scheduled community clean-ups in their neighborhood.
Why don’t we emulate this practice in order to instil positive values like cleanliness among our citizens? Who knows one day – not too far from now, I hope – Malaysia would be enlisted as one of the cleanest countries in the world and we don’t have to organise cleanliness campaigns any more. Slogans for cleanliness campaigns in the past seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.
• Associate Professor Dr Jeniri Amir is a lecturer and political analyst at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak.
