KUCHING: Six schools emerged as champions in the ‘Greenovation School Programme 2019’ yesterday.
For the Greenscape Upcycling category, SJK Chung Hua Pangkalan Baru won in the primary school category and SMK Datuk Patinggi Haji Abdul Ghapor won the secondary school category.
The Young Greenovators category saw SJK Chung Hua No 5 and SMK Bandar Kuching No 1 walk away with the grand prize for the primary school and secondary school categories, respectively.
As for the Green Runway category, SK Jalan Ong Tiang Swee and SMK Tun Abdul Razak won first place in the primary school and secondary school categories, respectively. The champions of the Greenscape Upcycling Competition received RM1,500 while the Young Greenovators Upcycling and the Green Runway Competition champions each received RM1,000.
The second place winners in the primary school category were won by SJK Chung Hua No 5 (Greenscape Upcycling), SJK Chung Hua No 1 (Young Greenovators) and SJK Chung Hua Pangkalan Baru (Green Runway).
In the secondary school category, second place was won by SMK Tun Abdul Razak (Greenscape Upcycling), SMK St Thomas (Young Greenovators) and Sekolah Seni Malaysia Sarawak (Green Runway).
SJK Chung Hua No 1 (Greenscape Upcycling), SJK Chung Hua Pangkalan Baru (Young Greenovators) and SJK Chung Hua No 5 (Green Runway) came in third place in the primary school category.
Finishing third in the secondary school category were SMK St Thomas (Greenscape Upcycling), SMK St Theresa (Young Greenovators) and SMK Bandar Kuching No 1 (Green Runway). All second and third place winners for the Greenscape Upcycling each brought home a cash prize worth RM1,000 and RM800 respectively.
For the Young Greenovators and Green Runway categories, RM800 and RM500 were awarded to each second and third place winners respectively.
All winners also walked away with trophies and certificates. Merit winners brought home RM500 (Greenscape) and RM300 (Greenovators and Runway),
trophies and certificates.
A political secretary to the chief minister, Tan Kai, represented the Minister for Local Government and Housing Datuk Dr Sim Kui Hian in presenting the prizes to all the winners at The Spring Shopping Mall here yesterday.
He said the population in Sarawak was growing rapidly which spurred various aspects of development and economic activities such as building of houses and infrastructure, increase of consumption rate and habits and inevitably, the escalating generation of wastes.
“For the ministry, we are committed in formulating policies and strategies that manage these developments in an effective and sustainable manner.
“In fact, these policies and strategies are already in place and actively implemented and enforced at various levels of the government agencies, especially the local authorities,” he stated.
He used the 3R (reduce, reuse and recycle) concept as an example for a way to address waste pollution and conserve natural resources.
“Our local councils are actively involved in promoting this practice among the community while cleanliness is an issue we continue to push forward consistently to prevent diseases and maintain an excellent level of public health.
“However, we cannot solely depend on the authorities to take action because it requires the attention and participation from everyone.
“We strongly encourage our young generation to develop concepts and solutions that are environmentally-friendly that can pave the way for a sustainable and greener Sarawak in the future,” he said.
Trienekens (Sarawak) Sdn Bhd group chief executive officer Stephen Chin said the programme acted as a platform to develop innovative concepts and solutions that can help minimise environmental degradation.
The programme was in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government and Housing , Kuching North City Commission (DBKU), Padawan Municipal Council (MPP), Serian
District Council (SDC), Natural Resources and Environment Board (NREB) Sarawak and Department of Environment (DOE) Sarawak.
