Malaysia urged to clean up, cut down single-use plastics

After being listed among Asia's worst ocean polluters, green group WWF has urged Malaysian authorities to limit single-use plastics.

Thomas Schuldt, WWF's coordinator of work on a plastic circular economy, highlighted how it was time to introduce regulation on limiting single-use plastics and work with companies to fund a recycling push.

Malaysia outranked China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, in terms of annual per-capita plastic packaging consumption, at about 16.8 kg per person. Thailand stepped in at second with 15.5 kg.

The WWF report showed that the countries contributed 60 per cent of the estimated 8 million tonnes of plastic that enter the world's oceans each year. It found that 27 million tonnes were consumed across all six nations in 2016.

It added that the volume of plastic waste going into the ocean globally is set to quadruple between 2010 and 2050.