KUALA LUMPUR: National Association of Smallholders Malaysia (NASH) urges the government to facilitate green food packaging business from oil palm leaves and lauds the government's sending illegally dumping of plastic wastes back to the EU.
In a statement today, NASH secretary-general, Adzmi Hassan highlighted the hipocracy when the company responsible for dumping junk plastic in Malaysia was from the UK, which supported the EU's plan ban on palm oil and unjustifiably labelled the industry as
'unsustainable.'
The oil palm sector, especially smallholders has been suffering when EU countries, including the UK, sending non-biodegradable junk to Malaysia while falsely alleging the global oil palm sector as ‘unsustainable’.
"The UK is actively voicing the importance of nature's conservation, while they are damaging the nature and causing other countries to bear the damage. This hipocracy is absolutely unacceptable," said Adzmi.
He suggested that the Malaysian government to facilitate a policy for renewable and biodegradable packaging using oil palm leaves for vegetables and food wrappings to reduce future plastic usage.
"As can be seen in Vietnam, there are many markets that use banana leaves to wrap their vegetables and food.
"This is very practical and can be adapted in Malaysia as a stepping stone for the government in promoting the use of environmentally-friendly materials and reducing future plastic usage", he said.
He explained the use of oil palm leaves for vegetables and food packaging would potentially, spawn new business and add value to the oil palm industry.
The use of oil palm leaves has the potential to increase the use of palm-based material, thus increasing demand and helping to increase the income of oil palm smallholders who have been facing depressed oil palm prices for years.
This initiative, he said, is not impossible to implement if the government has the political will to facilitate creation of new businesses for small farmers that can help drive Malaysia's economic growth.