The non-profit organisation Ocean Cleanup has been ‘working’ in the Klang River for a few years now and they have since removed over a million kilogrammes of trash from the garbage-filled river.
In a recent Twitter post, the Ocean Cleanup informed that they had hit a milestone as their Interceptor 002 having removed over 1,000,000 kilogrammes of trash and ‘saved’ two teddy bears from the Klang river.
The achievement was made after 157 offloads of 942 dumpsters.
Another milestone – 157 offloads of 942 dumpsters later, Interceptor 002 has now removed over 1,000,000 kilograms of trash (and two “bears”) from River Klang, Malaysia.🇲🇾 pic.twitter.com/DyDSPLXX0A
— The Ocean Cleanup (@TheOceanCleanup) November 16, 2022
According to the Ocean Cleanup website, the organisation had been working with the local government to rejuvenate the Klang river, on top of the Selangor Maritime Gateway initiative.
For this purpose, the Inceptor, which was designed for mass production and quick deployment in the world’s most polluted rivers, was being used.
The first was Interceptor 002 and the second was Interceptor 005 but Interceptor 005 is currently under maintenance.
Garbage delaying river deepening project
According to Selangor Infrastructure and Public Facilities Standing Committee chairman Izham Hashim, the tonnes of garbage, mattresses, baby strollers, and large tyres are among the items that are hindering the dredging and widening works of the Klang river.
He explained that these items would get stuck to the dredger and that work had to stop to remove them.
“Our big problem is garbage… layers after layers because it hasn’t been dredged for 20 years. This interferes with the progress or smoothness of this river deepening project.”
“On Tuesday (15 November), tyres went straight into the dredger. We also found baby strollers and large mattresses.”
“We aim to deepen the area within six months, he was quoted as saying by New Straits Times.
Izham then reminded the public that not to litter in the river as these ‘unimportant’ issues are interfering with the river reclamation, drainage, irrigation as well as the operation of the pumps at the river.
