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Livestock is one of the country’s important economic resources, nevertheless, an unsystematic livestock farm management system contributes to microplastic pollution. Microplastics (MPs) pollutant hurts the environment and human life, limited studies have been done in Malaysia’s freshwater ecosystems. Therefore, this research was to determine the abundance of MPs in surface water and sediments from the nearby river and the last catchment pond of pig farm effluent in Paya Mengkuang and Sungai Tuang, Melaka. The concentration of MPs was compared with six water quality parameters (pH, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), suspended solids (SS), dissolved oxygen (DO), total ammoniacal nitrogen (NH3-N), and chemical oxygen demand (COD). This study found that the average concentration of MPs was 487.38 particles/L and 50.96 particles/g for water and sediment samples consequently. This study showed a significant correlation between COD concentration and microplastic count in sediment samples. The source of microplastics in rivers is associated with anthropogenic activities such as unsystematic garbage disposal and poultry manure. The prevalence of microplastics in the environment of MPs could threaten the safety of resource utilization as MPs enter the food chain in aquatic ecology and pose a severe threat to aquatic organisms directly and subsequently to humans. Our study provides essential data on microplastic pollution in river estuaries and livestock farm areas.

Weedy rice or locally known as ‘padi angin’ has been infesting rice granary areas in Malaysia for the last 20 years. The outbreak of weedy rice in the country started during the late 1980s in Projek Barat Laut Selangor (PBLS) due to the adoption of direct-seeding practices. Weedy rice can be characterized by its early maturing and easy-shattering traits. The objective of this study was to determine the morphological variations of weedy rice in selected granary areas located in Peninsular Malaysia. A total of 110 weedy rice accessions were collected from nine locations in three granary areas in Peninsular Malaysia (the Western, Eastern, & Northern regions). The collected weedy rice accessions were planted under greenhouse conditions to study their morphological features. Results of the present study indicated that 73.6% of weedy rice accessions were awnless while the remaining 26.4% produced awn. Selected traits such as plant height, flag leaf length, culm length, number of tillers, number of panicles, and panicle length were included in the Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The weedy rice accessions were grouped into three different clusters mainly Cluster 1: cultivated rice and awnless populations, Cluster 2: brown and red pericarp awnless populations, and Cluster 3: awned populations. The findings of this study may be used as guidance for farmers and researchers for designing sustainable weedy rice management in the future.

Sustainability Education (SE), Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Education for Sustainability (ES) are the terms commonly used to describe the practice of teaching for sustainability. SE requires participatory teaching and learning methods that motivate and empower students to change their behaviour and play role in embracing concept of sustainable development. SE promotes competencies like critical thinking, imagining future scenarios and making decisions in a collaborative way. These competencies can also be applied for sustainable research since education and research are interrelated. To develop SE, it may be relevant to address the sustainable development in the curriculum or syllabus. The three pillars of sustainable development; environmental, economic and social might be used and adapted in academic and research disciplines. There is no specific pedagogy for SE, but there are several elements that can be adapted in the teaching environment such as critical reflection, systemic thinking and analysis, participatory learning, thinking creatively for future scenarios and collaborative learning. For instance, transdisciplinary research in assessing environmental performance of pollutants can be practised by extending the research including the impact pathway of the pollutants on economic growth, society well-being (human health) and awareness level of community. Transdisciplinary research not only look at one specific discipline, rather than look at the issue from a holistic perspective by establishing the linkage between environmental aspect with social and economic aspects. Transdisciplinary research also requires triple helix effort by strengthening government-academia-community relationship. This will help to inculcate different stakeholders with a sense of duty towards safeguarding human health and environmental stewardship. Thus, the SE can be established through transdisciplinary research which integrate and move beyond discipline-specific approaches to address a common problem.