YOURSAY | 'The minute the rain clears the haze, everyone, including the ministers and the media, forgets the issue...'

Indonesia claims haze in Kuala Lumpur originated from Sarawak

Mushiro: This haze is a seasonal problem, so also is the handling of the haze issue. The minute the rain clears the haze, everyone, including the ministers and the media, forgets the issue until the next occurrence.

There is no long-term effort to fix the haze. It is really very sad to see so many people suffering, billions lost and businesses taking a hit.

Roger 5201: It should not matter where the haze is originating from. The practice of open burning on a large scale like this has to stop and this applies equally to Malaysia and the rest of Asean, which share the same air and eco-system.

What seems to be missing is a cross-border framework to collaborate in preventing and putting out these fires.

Unspin: One of the root causes on why the farmers prefer to burn their plantation clearings is because it is too costly to hire lorries to cart the rubbish away.

For instance, if a farmer has four acres of old oil palm trees that he just chopped down, he has about 200 huge tree trunks plus branches and leaves to get rid of. It would take 20-30 lorry loads to do the job. If each load cost RM100, he is staring at RM2,000-RM3,000 in "unnecessary" cost.