Parents should educate children about cleanliness - Tengku Hassanal

KUANTAN, Aug 17 (Bernama) -- Cleanliness and good hygiene practices must start at home so that cases of littering and indiscriminately throwing garbage in public areas can be fully addressed.

The Regent of Pahang, Tengku Hassanal Ibrahim Alam Shah Al-Sultan Abdullah said parents should play a role in educating their children about cleanliness from the time when they were still young so that the good hygiene practices could become a habit.

“Awareness level on keeping the public areas clean is still low despite numerous related activities carried out by several parties, both the government agencies as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

“I hope that the 'plogging' activities through the efforts of NGO Youth for Change today will educate the public to be responsible in keeping the public areas clean,” he said.

Tengku Hassanal said this after joining the NGO in Pantai Sepat here today, where 'plogging' (a combination of jogging and collecting rubbish activities) was carried out.

Plogging, a combination of Swedish words “plocka upp” which means pick up and jogging started as an organised activity in Sweden around 2016 and spread to other countries in 2018, following increasing concerns about environment conservation, cleanliness and promoting a healthy lifestyle.

Meanwhile, Kuantan district officer Tengku Datuk Nor Asmaliza Ku Lah said the programme was attended by 1,000 people from government agencies and school students and collected 1.05 tonnes of waste.

“The programme will continue to Teluk Chempedak, Balok and then to Indera Mahkota before returning to Pantai Sepat,” Tengku Nor Asmaliza said.

-- BERNAMA