It is 2019 now. What is your new year wish?
Are you wishing to be rich? Or you wish your life to be better? Yup! That is the point I want to hear from you. If you wish your life better than 2018, things will not come to you without any effort. So, Lets start with recycling.
# How everything starts
The video is created by Ang Zhao Min.
Life begins in the ocean, stated in the Illinois Science. There are many researchers study about the origin of humans. One part of the scholars believes that humans’ life is come from the ocean. The very simple unit ‘cell’ begins in the ocean and slowly evolve into a bigger unit. The humans evolve for years and years before they become who we are now. This is just one of the perspectives for the statement: ‘life begins in the ocean.’
The main purpose of presenting the statement is to provoke recycling effort. By saying the statement, it means the ocean is extremely vital to maintain the life of humans. As the people fishing and consuming the fish, the ocean needs to be protected so that the fish and other marine life consumed by humans are continuously generating. Or else you would find the marine life extinct in the ocean one day!
The issue of humans disrupting the environment is addressing here. Earth is really beautiful. The green forests and brown lands located in certain part of the planet, and the blue water interspersed in every corner. However, humans did not cherish for what they have. Instead, they create many rubbish that fill up the landfills one by one until there is no place for them to live.
A more terrible problem is some humans even throw rubbish into the sea. Regardless the rubbish fills in the ocean intentionally or unintentionally, it is no doubt that humans are destroying the water source. According to Wildlife Research & Conservation, 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered with ocean. At the same time, the ocean holds 97% of Earth’s water. Although it seems the water source is huge but by destroying it will only take a few years if no one takes action to stop the disruption.
Rubbish such as bottles, plastics, polystyrene and papers are dumped all the time at everywhere. The production of rubbish is so ‘effective’ that the landfills might be full some day in the future. Moreover, some people like to litter. Rubbish is on the ground, in the river and finally goes into the ocean. Who pay for the price? The marine life?
No! It is you who pay for the price!
The fish died because of water pollution. The marine life is poisoned. The water is full with rubbish and it contains toxic chemical. Rubbish that did not properly dispose off is in the river. In the end, water is not clean anymore.
Life begins in the ocean and it comes back to the ocean, as I believe. Humans’ life begins in the ocean and they consume the marine life in daily routine. When humans are improving their life, the disruptions of environment also follow along. The place where lives emerge turns to be the place where lives end.
# Inspire to do recycling
Regarding the issue of environment disruption and recycling, I had contacted a senior volunteer of Tzu Chi Malaysia, Wong Kwai Lan, by phone. Wong is a friendly and gentle lady. She has joined the Tzu Chi Malaysia as a volunteer for more than 15 years. In her experiences, she conveys the importance of recycling and teaches people the knowledge of loving nature.
When chatting about her efforts in recycling, she shares that the rate of natural disasters happened has increase over time. “We have held several events and talks to promote recycling especially in primary schools of Malaysia. This is to encourage the children in exercising recycling. The more we do, the more we gain. When the environment is well-preserved, there will be less issue on disasters and environment,” said Wong.
Although Tzu Chi emphasis on all the 5Rs (Refuse, Reuse, Repair, Reduce and Recycle), recycling is not being neglected. Wong always taught the participants a small technique to memorize the rubbish which can be recycled. The technique is named as “Environmental protection ten fingers – bottles, bottles, cans, cans, paper, electricity, one, three, five, seven.” Each of them is referred to:
- bottles – plastic bottles
- bottles – glass bottles
- cans – aluminium cans
- cans – iron cans
- paper – papers
- electricity – batteries
- one – clothes (because the pronunciation of ‘one’ and ‘clothes’ are the same in Chinese. They are called ‘yi’)
- three – 3C (Computer, Communication, Consumer electronics). E.g. mouse and keyboard.
- five – hardware (Refers to the household hardware like fasteners, hand tools and building materials. The word ‘five’ is used in Chinese for the word ‘hardware.’)
- seven – other (because the pronunciation of ‘seven’ and ‘other’ are the same in Chinese. They are called ‘qi’)
Taiwan Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation Malaysia which generally called as Tzu Chi Malaysia is an organization based in Taiwan in 1966. According to SDG-SSE, the founder of Tzu Chi Master Cheng Yen listed “8 Charitable Footprints” of organisation. Environmental Protection is one of the targets.
Wong said she hopes to help a lot of people and the environment since young. After become the members of Tzu Chi, she does a lot of charity works which show loves and caring. “Environment is important. We live in this land and drink the water. We don’t want to regret later on. That is why we start. No one is perfect. You need to start and then you will know it is hard or easy,” said Wong, “Doing recycling is the same. Start from a little thing like categorising your rubbish according to the classification. Slowly it will become a habit.”
# Conclusion
This is the end of the post. I am appreciating Wong’s sharing. Hopefully she will keep on her efforts in doing recycling and other charity works.
Again, it is 2019 now. What are you still waiting for? Better late than never. Please put the recycling in your new year wishes’ list! And I hope to see you in my next post. Thank you!
Green for R 
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