Cultivating Recycling at FINISAR in conjunction with Earth Hour

23 March 2018

Launching of Earth Hour and Recycling at Finisar by Mr. CL Siew, 12th from left together with Dr. Richard Ng on his left.

FINISAR Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., based in Klebang, Ipoh became the second corporate company that has embarked on Recycling as a means to help reduce carbon footprint. It was held on 23 March 2018 in conjunction with Earth Hour which falls on 24 March 2018.

KOHIJAU-ICYCLE system has been selected to help their 5,200 staff to embrace a recycling culture as they found the high technology system less hassle and attractive as it provides incentive in the form of recycling points to contributors of recyclables.

These recycling points can be accumulated and redeemed with cash, TESCO/AEON coupons or donate to charity.

The programme kicked off with a video on Earth Hour and followed by a talk on carbon footprint and 3R by Associate Prof. Dr. Richard Ng, Chairman of KOHIJAU. The recycling bin for KOHIJAU-ICYCLE Recycling Reward Point System sponsored by FINISAR was launched by its Executive Director, Mr. CL Siew.

According to Mr. Siew, FINISAR is committed to Sustainable Environment. The recycling programme launched today will help our staff to participate in helping to reduce carbon footprint which contribute to climate change and global warming..

KOHIJAU Chairman Dr. Richard Ng congratulated FINISAR for their commitment towards reducing carbon footprint. He hope more corporate companies will come forward to emulate FINISAR by helping us to sponsor recycling bins to encourage more people to do recycling.
  

Ipoh City Watch New Team all for Making Ipoh the Most Liveable City in Malaysia

25 March 2018

ICW New office Bearers 2018 - 2019. Seated from left: Halida Ali (Assistant Secretary), Tina Leong (Secretary), Dr. Richard Ng (President), Dr. Kamaruddin Yaakob (Deputy President), S. Thinakaran (Treasurer). Standing from left: Assokan Kandiah, Toh Kam Yuan, Francis Wong, Shereen Wong and Shirley Foong

Ipoh City Watch (ICW), the watch dog for Ipohites, elected a 1Malaysia team as new office bearers for the period 2018 – 2019 during its 4th Annual General Meeting held in Ipoh recently. The new team has wowed to ensure that its vision of making Ipoh the most liveable city in Malaysia is achieved.

The 25 members who attended the AGM has re-elected Prof. Dr. Richard Ng from Open University Malaysia as the President and Dr. Kamaruddin Yaakob from University Sultan Azlan Shah as Deputy President. The members have also re-elected Tina Leong as the Honorary Secretary and Thinakaran as the Treasurer.

Three resolutions were raised and debated.

In the first resolution, members have agreed that ICW maintain its stand to remain apolitical where members are free to decide who they wish to vote during GE14. However, ICW will openly support candidates especially in the Kinta Valley who are committed to help make Ipoh liveable in particular on 5 areas; Safety, Cleanliness, Wellness, Affordable Cost of Living and Efficient Transportation system. So we want to wait and see the manifesto of the candidates vying to become the people’s representatives.

In the second resolution, ICW urge the State Government and Ipoh City Council to ensure that they walk the talk in terms of promoting Social Business concept. Since Ipoh was declared a Social Business City on in September 2016, very few businesses run under the social business city concept has emerged especially that involved NGOs in Perak. ICW would like to urge the Ipoh City Council who has been tasked to handle Social Business in Perak to actively engage and provide startup funds and other aids to NGOs to help them set up Social Business which can help the government to solve many of the social problems while reducing NGO dependency on government funding.

ICW also urge the Ipoh City Council and the Perak State Government to focus on Sustainable Development Goals especially on Poverty Eradication, Zero Hunger, Wellness, Sustainable Cities and Communities and Commitment towards the use of Clean Energy and Carbon Emission Reduction.  ICW also want all future development plans to be gender sensitive and disable friendly and adhere to green technology.

According to Dr. Ng, ICW will continue to play a pro-active role together with KOHIJAU to promote cleanliness through the KOHIJAU-ICYCLE Recycling Reward Point System. Todate, 68 bins have been installed throughout Perak where 20 of them are located within Kinta District. Over 60,000 kg of recyclables have been collected since it started in September 2016 contributed by more than 6,000 members in Perak. This effort has saved the state government of RM18,000 which will otherwise use to pay to contractors to transport the garbage to the landfill. While ICW and KOHIJAU continue to educate the public, we urge Ipoh City Council to step up enforcement to catch those responsible in throwing their garbage indiscriminately and caused illegal dumping. We also urge the City Council to improve its services by having routine pick up of any garbage irrespective of its types. They must also deploy more workers to sweep the streets in the city and gardens. Only by doing so, we could keep maintaining Ipoh as one of the cleanest cities in Malaysia and attract tourists and investments into the state. 

ICW and KOHIJAU are proud to have played significant role in helping educate Perakians to embrace a recycling culture through its recycling reward point system in collaboration with ICycle Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. We played a role in making Ipoh the cleanest city and Perak second cleanest state in Malaysia in 2017. Kpg Slim in Slim River has emerged as the third best village using our recycling system. And recently, KOHIJAU-ICYCLE system has helped IPD Selama to emerge as the best Police Quarters 2017 in Malaysia in category B.

KOHIJAU-ICYCLE Recycling Reward Point System helps IPD Selama won the Best Police Quarters in Malaysia

25 March 2018

Dr. Ng receives the Letter of Commendation from DSP Loo Lian Lay, Selama District Poilice Chief for KOHIJAU-ICYCLE Recycling Reward Point System that helps them emerged National Champion

KOHIJAU-ICYCLE recycling system which offers recycling points as incentives for the community in Perak has finally bore fruits. KOHIJAU or Koperasi Alam Hijau Perak Berhad, is a cooperative society set up to help promote sustainable environment has teamed up with ICycle Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. in Perak since September 2016 to offer a high technology and innovative way to participate in recycling where recycling points earned can be redeemed with cash, TESCO/AEON coupon or donate to charity organisations.

Besides providing recycling points, KOHIJAU also provides bins for every community with about 250 households to assist members to drop their recyclables anytime at their convenience. As we are an NGO, we rely on sponsorship for our bins which cost RM2,000 each. Todate we have installed 68 bins through Perak, which were sponsored by the Perak State government and corporate companies. Since the launch of our system, we have managed to register close to 7,000 members and collected about 60,000 kg of recyclables.

Thus our efforts have helped reduced 60,000 kg of garbage from going to the landfills or illegal dumpsite. We have also helped the local authority to reduce cost of about RM18,000 paid to contractors to transport garbage to landfills.

According to KOHIJAU Chairman, Dr. Richard Ng, “Our recycling campaigns have played a significant role in helping to Ipoh the cleanest city and Perak second cleanest state in Malaysia in 2017.” We have also helped Kpg Slim in Slim River emerged as the third best village using our recycling system.

Most recently, KOHIJAU-ICYCLE system has helped IPD Selama to emerge as the best Police Quarters 2017 in Malaysia in category B.

“Finally our efforts have been recognised where the Royal Police of Malaysia of Selama District awarded the letter of appreciation to KOHIJAU during the 211^th Police Day celebration.”

“The recognition helps to motivate us to strive harder to help Perak become the cleanest state in Malaysia and help reduce carbon footprint to create a sustainable environment for our future generation”.

‘Why Ipoh, Malaysia, Should Be on Your Travel Radar’. - The New York Times

By SANJAY SURANA FEB. 28, 2018

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Market Lane in Ipoh. Lauryn Ishak for The New York Times

CredLauryn Ishak for The New York Times

In the middle of the 1900s, the northwestern Malaysian town of Ipoh was the world’s largest producer of tin and its booming success showed.

Informally described by locals as the “town that tin built,” Ipoh grew from a sleepy village in the valley of the Kinta River to a hotbed of cabarets, night life and conspicuous consumption, a city fueled by the fortunes of the Chinese-mining towkays (bosses). But the collapse of tin prices in the 1980s curbed the city’s rise and soon Ipoh faded, existing primarily as a pleasant place to retire (the surrounding limestone karst mountains are beautiful and the resulting hard water is claimed to make food taste better), or as an eating stop for travelers shuttling between the mountain region of Cameron Highlands to the east and the island of Penang to the northwest.

Fried macaroni and cheese and cinnamon tea at Thumbs Cafe.CreditLauryn Ishak for The New York Times

But Ipoh, Malaysia’s third most populous city, and one largely unknown outside of Southeast Asia, is staging a comeback to become the country’s hippest destination. The city’s fortunes began to improve in 2004 when the water theme park Lost World of Tambun opened, backed by the Malaysian conglomerate Sunway Group (its founder and chairman Jeffrey Cheah Fook Ling was born close to Ipoh). More recently, in 2014, the Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic, as he had done in Penang’s Georgetown, placed his imprimatur on the city by beautifying old buildings with a series of murals. But perhaps the greatest change — one propelled by homegrown talent — has been the boom in hip cafes over the last few years.

Ipoh, now, is roaring back in style.

The city, the capital of Perak state, has a core that is relatively compact, with roads largely plotted in a grid system — planners redrafted the town after parts of it were destroyed in a sweeping fire in 1892 — so it’s easily walkable. (Be prepared to sweat; year-round daytime temperatures hover around a humid 90 degrees). It also has a number of pretty shop-house and heritage buildings around the Old Town, like the Railway Museum playfully referred to by the British during the colonial era as the Taj Mahal of Ipoh.

The catalyst for Ipoh’s new tilt was arguably the Sekeping Kong Heng hotel. Opened six years ago, it took the peeling bones of a hostel once used by performers at a Cantonese opera and updated the interiors with glass and steel; the effect is remarkable, modern and yet artfully dilapidated, a sensitive reimagining of a storied, decrepit space. The hotel opened on Kong Heng Square in the city’s Old Town, and was soon followed by other newcomers nearby, such as the cafe Burps & Giggles. Offering a simple menu of bar food — burgers, pizza, fish and chips — its most appealing aspect is the almost hallucinatory interior, with junk furniture, mismatched furnishings, haphazardly cobbled-together lamps and the centerpiece mural of a woman with curly red hair who seems lost in thought. It was a novel concept for a town more famous for bare-bones restaurants serving food like ayam tauge (cold chicken with beansprouts) and nasi kandar, a rice with honeyed chicken and curry sauce, locally known as nasi ganja for its addictive qualities and ability to put the diner to sleep.

Plan B in Ipoh. 

CrediLauryn Ishak for The New York Times

Other businesses followed. Patisserie BoutiQue opened on the street called Jalan Sultan Yussuf with a menu of salads, soups, sandwiches, pasta and excellent desserts (the tiramisù has dense mascarpone and a strong kick of Baileys Irish Cream), and an interior with whitewashed exposed brick walls, white subway tiles, poured concrete floors and a soundtrack of old French songs.

Patisserie BoutiQue in Ipoh.

Around the corner, Plan B is a contemporary restaurant with a high ceiling, giant windows and tile floors. The menu is international but pays homage to Malay ingredients; the spaghetti agli olio features bunga kantan (torch ginger flower), the pungent, floral plant used in the Southeast Asian dishes rojak and laksa, lending the Italian classic an Asian flavor profile.

Cafes continue to open in the town’s colonnaded shophouses, tucked between established businesses like silk shops, watch repairers and travel agents.

Chokodok (Malay for banana fritter) has accommodations above its intriguing, tumbledown, reggae-themed restaurant. Opened by two brothers who had spent some time in the islands off the coast of Peninsular Malaysia, it has tree trunks as decorations, the flotsam and jetsam of a beach shack, and music that’s consistently reggae. A former orphanage on the eastern fringe of central Ipoh transformed into Thumbs Café, an eclectically furnished restaurant specializing in Malay dishes.

M Boutique, a hotel that mixes the rustic, industrial and whimsical, became the city’s most high-style property in an area rife with used-car showrooms. When it opened “this concept was not available here,” said Joey Chong, a sales executive for the hotel. “Lots of youngsters come from Kuala Lumpur [two hours away by car or train] for the cafe hopping. It’s much easier to get around here than in K.L.”

Old Town in Ipoh

But the trend isn’t confined to central Ipoh. A number of cool joints have sprung up in Ipoh Gardens East, a commercial and residential area near the Aeon Mall. Tea Coffee Game opened among a drab row of businesses and office buildings. It has bright interiors, Ikea furniture, and there’s a utilitarian feel to it, but its conceit is the games found throughout — traditional board games like checkers and ludo as well as a video console.

“We have games to make the place different, to help people revisit their childhood, bring them good memories for when the food is served,” Chung Kok Heung, a science lecturer at a local university and a co-owner, told me one evening. “A few years ago most youngsters here moved to other countries, but now people are coming back because they like the food, the environment, the slower lifestyle.”

Its menu, as I found often in this new breed of restaurants, focuses on Western food and includes a pretty salad served in a Mason jar, full of crisp green and purple cabbage, peppers, carrots, cherry tomatoes, and served with smooth sesame dressing. A big draw here is the all-day breakfast, with up to seven items like bacon, grilled tomatoes, eggs and hash browns, costing only 19 Malaysian ringgits (about $5). Nearby, Zakka Loft has colorful curtains; a sky mural with the words “Do You Have a Dream?”; a wall unit full of knitted soft toys (it offers workshops on how to make them); and fabulous iced fruit drinks.

These places are free from hipster posturing and have an easygoing ambience.

Of all the cafes and restaurants I visited, one stood out. Classically trained chef Sam Lau left Ipoh in his early 20s to work in kitchens around Asia and Europe, returning to his hometown after 16 years. “I came back to my country and couldn’t find good bread,” he lamented. Thus began a mission; for two years he sold bread from his bicycle outside the restaurant Plan B.

In December 2016 he opened Artisan Handmade Bread in an old shop-house near Kong Heng Square, where he works in a small open kitchen behind the bread counter. “I am up at 3 a.m. every day, baking bread, running the kitchen. Ipoh people are old-fashioned, they like value for money.” The excellent food is a steal — the set-lunch menu (he closes for the day at 4 p.m.) includes soup, a main dish, an amuse bouche, dessert and lemon iced tea, for 28 ringgits.

The Kinta River in Ipoh.

Despite his background and training, Mr. Lau avoided opening a formal-dining restaurant. “The young generation doesn’t want fine dining. It wants good food and casual. I want to provide good honest food cooked right in front of you, bistronomy style. And I also want to educate locals on what goes into commercial bread and artisan bread.” His bread is outstanding, fibrous and supple, and justly anchors the menu — generous chunks served with the mixed vegetable soups, thick slices bookending the grilled sandwiches.

“Lots of youngsters leave here to come back, they want to share what they learned from overseas and show something new to Ipoh,” Mr. Lau said.

Ipoh is all the richer for it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/travel/ipoh-malaysia-tourism.html