But among the early risers is another group with a very different routine. Armed with gloves, litter pickers and black rubbish bags, volunteers from Trash Hero Kuching comb through public spaces, picking up the waste others leave behind.

And it does not take long to fill the bags.

During a recent clean-up at the Old Court House near the waterfront, volunteers collected some 19kg of rubbish in under an hour. Cigarette butts, plastic cups, takeaway containers, bottles and food wrappers were among the most common items found scattered around the area.

For leader Shahrul Izhar, the movement began with a simple frustration while exercising outdoors. “You want to enjoy the environment, but everywhere you look, there’s trash,” he said.

“It affects the beauty of the place, and stray cats and dogs end up eating from the rubbish.”

The irony is hard to ignore. Just two years ago, Kuching was recognised by Swiss air-quality technology company IQAir as the world’s 11th cleanest city – yet rubbish remains a stubborn presence in many public spaces.

Shahrul, a civil servant, said the group started modestly in June 2023 with just three friends cleaning around the Kuching Civic Centre. There were no major plans at first – just a shared determination to do something useful.

“Every Saturday, the three of us would spend an hour cleaning,” he said. “Even then, the amount of rubbish we collected always shocked us.”

One clean-up at Pasir Panjang Beach in Santubong saw the group collect as much as 100kg of waste in just an hour.

For co-leader Dr Brian Sim, the experience has changed the way he sees public spaces.

“People think a place looks clean. But once you start paying attention, you realise there is rubbish almost everywhere,” said the 33-year-old from Sarawak General Hospital.

Over time, the clean-ups have become more than volunteer work. Sim describes the activity as therapeutic, especially when heavily littered areas are transformed within a short time.

Today, Trash Hero Kuching is among the city’s most active environmental volunteer movements, attracting students, villagers, government agencies and private companies.

Some programmes now draw up to 100 volunteers through collaborations with universities and Dewan Bandaraya Kuching Utara.

First-time volunteer Khairunnisa Syuhada Mohamad Ossen, a 20-year-old chemistry student, initially joined as part of an assignment. But the experience left a lasting impression.

“After seeing how much rubbish we collected in less than an hour, I realised the problem is much bigger than I expected,” she said.

The group also hopes to spark wider conversations about waste reduction and heavy reliance on single-use plastics.

“We clean, we educate and we change,” Shahrul stressed. “We want people to realise that everyone has a role in protecting the environment.”

Learn more about Trash Hero Kuching on Facebook.