Banting, 13 June 2022 – In conjunction with World Environment Day, celebrated annually on 5 June, Yayasan Sime Darby (YSD), in collaboration with Reef Check Malaysia (RCM), gathered about 150 volunteers from Sime Darby Berhad, Sime Darby Plantation Berhad and Sime Darby Property Berhad to clean up the Pantai Kelanang beach.

The beach clean-up initiative along Pantai Kelanang, Banting, took place on Saturday, 11 June 2022, and was supported by the employee volunteers from the Sime Darby companies, through the YSD Huluran Kasih programme. Armed with gloves, litter pickers, and trash bags, the crew fanned out along the shoreline of Pantai Kelanang, collecting a total of 1,074.66kg of beach litter from the area.

The activity kicked off early in the morning with a briefing by RCM before the employee volunteers started collecting rubbish along the beach, which was then separated according to their recycling specifications, such as plastic bottles, rubber, glass, polystyrene packaging, fishing nets, and ropes. The non-recyclable materials such as cigarette butts, food wrappers, and shopping bags were disposed of responsibly.

"Held in conjunction with World Environment Day this year, I am proud of the achievements from YSD's first organised beach clean-up. We are thrilled to collaborate with our partner RCM in this volunteering initiative, as they share our aspiration for a greener environment with sustainable management of coral reefs in Malaysia. Along with all our other project partners under our Environment pillar, we hope to inspire and empower more Malaysians to take real action to mitigate climate change," said Dr Yatela Zainal Abidin, CEO of YSD.

This initiative by YSD is hoped to spur and promote conservation efforts of oceans and beaches, consistent with their goals of protecting biodiversity while preserving the terrain and seascape. Additionally, these efforts complement YSD's aim of supporting causes that proactively address sustainability.

"RCM has always been committed to playing our part in keeping Malaysia's coastal areas clean. Despite the ongoing pandemic last year, we continued our International Coastal Clean-up (ICC) campaign virtually in an effort to raise awareness on marine debris pollution while providing solutions on how the public can prevent more waste from entering our ocean. We are excited to see more corporate foundations like YSD playing an active role to remove trash from beaches and oceans – inspiring change in the fight against marine debris pollution," RCM General Manager, Julian Hyde stated.

As the problem of marine debris persists, YSD and the Sime Darby companies will take steps to address the critical need for all Malaysians, and not just local communities who live near the coastlines, to care for our larger society.