Neighbours and the Environment

Recently, a Malaysian Deputy Minister commented that our solid waste contractor, Alam Flora( translated as Floral World) has not done a good job in keeping our country clean. He put the blame on its foreign workers not understanding the concept of cleanliness.

I would like to put forward my 2 sen's opinion on this. I have no complaints on the the Indonesian workers of Alam Flora in my neighbourhood. They dutifully sweep the streets and collect the garbage day after day, and year after year. They clean our drains regularly. We on the other hand, chose to litter as and where we fancy.

Our children litter the playgrounds on their way home from school. Our smokers chose to toss their cigarette butts just anywhere, sometimes over their neighbour's fencing. Maids sweep their garden waste into the drains and housewives place the kitchen wastes out for the cats and dogs to salvage. And you say the foreign workers do not understand cleanliness!

Talking about neighbours, how do you tell your older neighbour not to place her rubbish in front of your house? I simply don't understand why she cannot put her carelessly wrapped rubbish in front of HER own house. To suggest that she is senile is out of the question. It's just the attitude.
Many years ago, she let her cats defecate on my balcony and when I complained, I got a ' tough luckla !' response. The other unneighbourly act that my neighbours do is to park their cars at an angle in front of their gate making it difficult for us to drive into our compound. What did we do to deserve such neighbours?