ASEAN is once again in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, this time after the newly formed Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW) singled out the region for its disproportionate contribution to plastic waste in the environment – especially the ocean.Approximately eight million tonnes of plastic enters the oceans every year – and there may already be 150 million tonnes of it based on estimated leakages per year since 1950.

Recently, The ASEAN Post published an article on cyberbullying in Cambodia which pointed to results from the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) five-week poll involving one million young people as well as suggestions from its series of student-led #ENDviolence Youth Talks. Following its findings, UNICEF called on Cambodia to put in place a new policy that would help protect the nation’s children from cyberbullying.

The Cambodian government is building a global textile industry on the backs of Cambodian women working the sewing machines on the garment factory floor. However, they are often overworked and underpaid, and rarely ever promoted to supervisory positions. A study by Care International revealed that one in three Cambodian women working in the industry has suffered sexual harassment on the factory floor.

A growing band of immunisation detractors is driving a surge in measles cases from the Philippines to Washington State that threatens to derail efforts to wipe out the disease.Worldwide cases of the viral illness increased by about 50 percent to more than 229,000 last year, according to preliminary data from the World Health Organization (WHO), which included “vaccine hesitancy” in its list of top 10 threats to global health this year.

Tsunamis in Indonesia claimed more than 2,600 lives last year – a number which could have been much lower had their Tsunami Warning System (TWS) been in working condition.A tsunami after a 7.5 magnitude earthquake killed around 2,200 people in Palu on Sulawesi island in September and another tsunami after the Anak Krakatoa volcano erupted in the Sunda Straits in December killed around 400 people in Java and Sumatra.

In a world where climate change, air and water pollution, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, ozone depletion, and other environmental problems overlap, a fix in one arena can cause trouble in another.Here are a few examples of what might be called Earth's "zero-sum" dilemma in the 21st century.Water vs.

The sweltering backwaters of Indonesian Borneo have become the unlikely ground zero for the global production and export of Kratom, a tree leaf hailed by some as a miracle cure for everything from opioid addiction to anxiety.Part of the coffee family, the leaf has been used for centuries in Southeast Asia and Papua New Guinea for its pain-relieving and mildly stimulating effects but it is now sold in powder form and exported worldwide – alarming some health regulators who have raised concerns

A soaring demand for durians in China is being blamed for a new wave of deforestation in Malaysia with environmentalists warning vast amounts of jungle is being cleared to make way for massive plantations of the spiky, pungent fruit.Grown across tropical Southeast Asia, the durian is hailed as the "king of fruits" by fans, who liken its creamy texture and intense aroma to blue cheese. But detractors say durians stink of sewage and stale vomit.

Along with most Southeast Asian countries, Cambodia’s electricity consumption over the past decade has skyrocketed. In a report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), electricity consumption in Cambodia has been growing rapidly, averaging 20 percent growth per annum since 2010. This rate continues to accelerate as average incomes in the nation rise on the whole.Despite the growing consumption of electricity, Cambodia is one of the few countries in the region that has low access to electricity.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected that global warming is likely to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2030.