We’ve often heard Malaysians complain about the lack of wonderful public spaces in our cities like the ones that can be found in Singapore. We want clean and well maintained public parks, facilities that actually work and infrastructure such as bus and train stations that always look brand new.

But when we do get nice things, like the wonderful Town Park just outside Setia City Mall in Setia Alam, we do our best to ruin them.

For those who have not been there, the Setia Alam Town Park has a large, beautiful field where, on a typical weekend, you can see hundreds of people playing or picnicking. The field is surrounded by a track on which visitors can jog, roller skate or walk. There’s also a moat in which various species of fish swim. Visitors can feed them.

It’s an open park. No entry fee is charged, and it’s truly a wonderful place to spend time at.

Sadly, many of the visitors evidently don’t know how to appreciate it. Once the sun has set and the crowds go home, the place is full of trash. Discarded food wrappers, empty plastic cups, cigarette butts and paper towels litter the field, the track and even the moat, polluting the water and endangering the fish and turtles that live there.

It is not at all a sight reflective of a nation with first-world aspirations. We’re always saying we want a first-class government and first-class facilities, but are we first-class citizens?

It would be a shame if the operators of parks and other attractions that are free for the public to use start charging entry fees to pay for cleaning up after their visitors.

Poor enforcement has always been a problem with our country, and that’s probably why many of us don’t care to obey the “Keep Clean” signs posted at public or private parks, bus stops and other such places.

We really need strict enforcement, but more than that, we need to assume ownership of public areas and to be their stewards, whether these places are public or private owned or whether or not cleaners are employed to take care of the trash. This was precisely what a member of the Singapore Parliament, Desmond Lee, spoke about recently. He said the sustainability of public spaces would be ensured if the public took ownership and stewardship of them.

It’s certainly not unreasonable to expect the Malaysian public to take that attitude.

When it comes to ensuring cleanliness, some of us always think it’s the job of the local council or the cleaners employed by restaurants, malls, parks, hotels or stadiums. But cleanliness begins with us. Throw your trash into a bin. If the bin is full, then take it with you and dispose of it in another, less packed bin.

Take stewardship and ownership of your own rubbish. That’s a big first step towards taking stewardship and ownership of our public places.

We get the public spaces we deserve. If it looks like a horrible place to hang out at, then we deserve it.