In 2020, the target is to declare George Town as a garden city. Among the Greening initiatives that have been carried out include those carried out at Jesselton Crescent, Jalan Dato Keramat and roudabouts at Udini, Gurney Drive, Bayan Baru and Air Itam as part of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Consequently, the council is engaging in tree planting with Non Governmental Organizations (NGO) and private sector especially to mantain the greening of the city. By 2020, 90,000 shaded trees will be planted. At the same time, the council is also coming up with a Tree Preservation Order to ensure that the heritage trees continue to be preserved. Additionally, housing and commercial developers that develop landscapes will need to make mandatory landscape approval plans. Concurrently, the council is keen on creating pocket parks and neighborhood parks to enhance existing urban green areas.
Read More Read LessAs of now, public transportation in Penang is akin to only one public bus service operated by Rapid Penang. In Penang, the State Government has spent RM2 million to support the BEST (Bridge Express Shuttle Transit), Park and Ride service and the CAT (Central Area Transit) service. Carpooling is encouraged and practised while Car Free Days have also been implemented. In fact, there are now four areas in the city which are car free on Sundays. The Penang Bicycle Route Master Plan has also been set up, enabling streets for bicycle users to move safely. A one-way street system has also been set up in Pulau Tikus to ensure smoother traffic. Public sharing of spaces including 5 foot way streets, back lanes, street sharing concepts along with the restriction of tour buses at heritage sites are underway. There has also been a 12.5 km long coastal dedicated bicycle lane. All these measures have been set up as part of the Penang Strategic Transport Master Plan.
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MBPP is carrying a community recycling initative for the residents of Penang. Among these measures include b) Public Private partnership between Penang City Council together with Penang Environmental Working Group (PEEWOG) and IRM (recycling company), Dell (computer manufacturer) and Sunshine Wholesale group (Retailer) to recycle pc waste. Over the span of ten years, 152 tonnes of electronic waste related to personal computers have been collected. Another activity related to the collection of electronic waste is The Project for Model Development for e-waste Collection, Segregation and Transportation from Households for Recycling” funded by Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA) and implemented by Department of Environment with cooperation from Penang City Council. The household electronic waste collection system is probably the first of its kind among Malaysian states
Read More Read LessMBPP has been developing local communities through partnerships with NGOs and motivated individuals to identify, analyze and produce creative local green solutions. Examples of social green themed engagement activities include Batu Uban recycling centre, Taman Sri Nibong Neighbourhood Recycling Centre and community cleaning activities. One of the key initiatives of the community engagement work is the cooperation programme with "G Club", a cycling club who campaigned for the provision of dedicated cycling lanes. Penang City Council is also promoting healthy living through sponsoring walkathons
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As part of its green building promotion strategies, Penang Island City Council (MBPP) encourages green practices through leadership by example. These include the installation of rainwater harvesting systems at public toilets in buildings under their operation. Similarly, public markets are designed or retrofitted to incorporate daylighting and LED lighting possibly in the future when needed. Additionally, as Penang is also a Heritage City, whenever a building within the UNESCO heritage site is retrofitted, the building owner is encouraged to reuse as much as possible the old building materials . Finally, Penang Island City Council actively encourages Green Building Index (GBI) certified buildings both for the council's self owned buildings and also privately owned buildings. To motivate the private sector,those who acheive GBI certification will be charged only RM 10 per sq ft (residential) and RM 14 per sq feet in terms of development charges by MBPP. At the same time, Penang Green Office will become the host for the upcoming GBI tool kit for office environments. Similarly, Penang State government is enacting its first ever local government initiated green building which is the Penang Dome project
Read More Read LessMBPP is carrying a community recycling initative for the residents of Penang. Among these measures include a) Recycling programme for schools organized together with Penang City Council, Penang Education Department and the corporate sector which consists of F & N Beverages Marketing and Tetra Pak ( Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. The campaign had seen tremendous growth since its introduction in 2012, having drawn over 75 schools in the state who collected a total of over 300 tonnes of recyclable items. The competition, which is organised with the cooperation of the state Education Department, challenges participating schools to collect the most amount of recyclable materials such as paper, plastic, aluminium and e-waste. The council has added another two R concepts namely Reinvent (establishment of of recycling initiatives through public private partnership programme ) and Rethink (create benchmarking of recycling models among communities)
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Greener, Safer and Healthier Penang campaign.
The programme was first initiated in the year 2010 through
the Penang Island City Council and has seen the number of
participating schools increase from 24 in 2010 to 28 by the
end of 2015. The green schools programme seeks to inaugurate
love of nature and preserving the environment among Penang
school children. It also trains students to develop thinking
and living skills through observation of their surroundings.
The Municipal Council of Penang Island has been running the programme in conjunction with "Cleaner Greener Penang as of August 2011. There are two ways of composting, such as:
A Bricks Method
Providing of areas and empty bricks with sufficient space to take in 100 kg of food waste in waste composting site of Tapak Pengkomposan Sisa at Penang Hill. The Brick Method is carried out in a confined area space of uncemented bricks where food waste is stored B. Bio-regen method
Through this method, food waste is turned into bio-liquid fertilizer through a simple mechanism which decomposes organic matter through a grinding process with the infusion of microbes. As of June 2014, there are 8 locations of food waste processing centres including morning markets, schools and neighbourhoods
At present, there are 34,000 street lights in Penang including 17,000 which are mantained by the Council directly. About 137 Light-Emitting Diode (LED) street lights have already been installed at certain areas such as Gurney Drive,The Light and Bayan Lepas areas. The LED installation is basically as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiaive that is carried in out partnership with private companies such as Lybase Ltd, Intramas among others. Plans are underway to install about 6217 LED street lights in Penang City to replace existing streetlights which utilize High Pressure Sodium Vapour (HPSV) light. This activity will commence in 2016 and will be carried out in stages.
Read More Read LessSince 2011, Penang government have a policy to discourage the use of plastic bags. Initially, the initiative was confined to 3 days a week but subsequently extended to the whole week. Shoppers in Penang will be charged 20 cents as a form of levy for each plastic bag everyday that they request as sanctioned by Penang state government's green campaign. The tax collection money is then channeled to charity and for environmental management initiatives. The levy applies to purchases made at all retail outlets in the state. The "No Plastic Bag" campaign was initiated as it reduces the harmful chemicals released to the air when plastic bag decomposes. Furthermore, the threat of water and soil contamination is also reduced. More importantly, plastic bag usage reduction reduces marine litter that endangerers marine life. Lastly, plastic bag reduction also reduces clogging within sewerage and drainage systems thus mitigating flood occurances. Similarly, as part of the Zero Waste promotion campaign, Penang has banned the use of polystyrene boxes and plates in all official functions in 2009
Read More Read LessMayor Tung Seang YewPenang Island City Council, Malaysia
