Mud balls to keep drains and rivers pristine

Story and pictures by Ng Jia Xiang

Bankers, environmentalists, pupils and other young people have got together to save Sabah waters from pollution. They have been making 300,000 mud balls that are full of friendly micro-organisms or microbes for short. On June 18, they will throw them into four dirty and smelly big drains in Kota Kinabalu. In three months the drains will become pristine and odourless as they flow into rivers, such as the Babagon in Penampang, which give us our drinking water.

The “To Earth with Love” campaign has got off to a good start to drive home the importance of keeping our drains and rivers clean, according to deputy chief minister Dr Yee Moh Chai.

He launched a workshop on April 24 to teach 200 enthusiastic people to make mud balls. They included pupils from All Saints, La Salle, Sanzac and Sekolah Agama Kota Kinabalu, and members of three NGOs that are the campaigners: the Sabah Banking Employees’ Union (SBEU), the Sabah Environment Protection Association (Sepa) and the Young Malaysians Movement (YMM).

Dr Yee, who is minister of resource development and information technology, noted that this is the first time that three NGOs have come together for such an environmental project.

“This is a great start to make the public aware of the importance of keeping our drains clean and not to pollute them with kitchen or industrial waste,” he said.

SBEU president Margaret Lim says they will throw the mud balls in drains around the suburbs of Foh Sang and Hilltop, the Sabah museum and Kota Kinabalu High School.

Her union is determined to carry out this campaign for 10 years. “Hopefully by then, we will have sparkling clean drains, ponds and rivers,” she says, adding that mud balls may not be enough if the people do not refrain from throwing rubbish into drains.

Lim says Masidi Manjun’s ministry of tourism, culture and environment is giving the campaign 137,000 ringgit. He is the campaign’s patron.

Environmentalists say polluted drain water which flows into rivers would kill aquatic life such as fish and prawns and destroy marine ecology. Polluted river water flows into the sea and endangers marine life.

People, animals and plants will not be able to depend on rivers and sea for water and food as toxic ammonia from rotting food and other wastes chokes off aquatic and marine life, they say and add that this would be catastrophic.

The solution to water pollution seems easy but requires quite a lot of hands. Mud balls contain a cocktail of microbes that removes or reduces toxic ammonia in drains and rivers. It is the ammonia that gives drains the distinctive foul smell.

But to produce enough of these microbes, a solution known as “effective micro-organisms (EM)” that contains lactic acid and photrotrophic bacteria and yeast is combined with clay, rice or wheat bran, molasses and water and shaped into balls that are allowed to ferment for a month away from the sun, according to Clarence Chiuh, a director of Growan International Sendirian Berhad. His company sells EM at about 26 ringgit ($8.70) a litre.

He says that 100,000 mud balls were thrown into the waters of Lahad Datu and Tawau last year.

Adrea Joyce maludin, 17, a pupil of All Saints, is waiting excitedly for the day when she will throw mud balls into the drains. “I’m excited at just making these,” she said. “I’ve never done this before and it gives me a great feeling. I’m excited that I can do something for mother Earth.” – Insight SabahRelated stories:
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