Students make mud balls to heal the environs

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KOTA KINABALU: Students of a secondary school here are learning how they can make a difference in helping to tackle environmental pollution.

SM La Salle is among the first few schools in Sabah to use the microbe-infused mud balls to treat water in drains around the school compound thanks to the know-how from staff of the Shangri-La Tanjung Aru Resort.

Since August, groups of La Salle students have been learning to make the mud balls at the resort that has “adopted” the school.

Since then, teachers and students have learned to make their own mud balls and began dropping them in the drains around the school last week.

La Salle cleanliness and school beautification co-odinator Goh Siew Goik said this would serve as the basis of bigger things, with the school planning to make enough of bokashi mud balls to treat clogged drains and water-logged monsoon drains at the nearby Tanjung Aru town.

“Our students are learning that they can make a difference in cleaning the environment just by making these mud balls,” she said.

Goh said the use of the mud balls had been proven to reduce water pollutants while improving water quality in rivers and drains.

She said the dense mud balls would sink into the sludge and the microbes would remove the ammonia in the water, thus reducing the foul smell in the drains and rivers.

Goh also said the mud balls were essentially made of bokashi or composted rice husks, mineral powder, effective micro-organisms, soil, molasses and sea salt.

She said the school bought the materials from local suppliers and the students had learned to make their own effective micro-organisms by fermenting gula Melaka (palm sugar) with the composted rice husks.

Based on the school’s experience, the materials for making 100 mud balls would cost about RM144.