TRASH HEROES AND SCAVENGER APPS HELP BALI CLEAN UP
Five years ago, tour guide Wayan Aksara noticed that more and more visitors he showed around Bali were complaining about garbage on its once-pristine beaches.
The mounting rubbish problem was also becoming personal for Aksara, who lives near Saba Beach. The area close to the holiday resort of Sanur faces its own constant battle with trash washed onto its shores from a nearby river.
“Every time we drove around, our guests … would comment about it not being clean and the large amount of plastic,” said Aksara. “They would say the trash is bad, that tourism here is not sustainable, and ask what we are doing about it.”
Aksara joined — and is now chairman of — Trash Hero Indonesia, a community group with more than 20 chapters across the country and about 12 on Bali. It uses social media to organise weekly garbage-collection events for volunteers.
Aksara, a father of two, also gives talks at schools and community events on how to manage waste better.
Like many parts of Asia, Indonesia has a fast-growing economy and population, and a huge coastline with many densely populated cities.
These factors have created a “perfect storm” for garbage in the surrounding seas, said Susan Ruffo, a managing director at the US-based Ocean Conservancy. Garbage collection services and infrastructure have largely failed to keep pace with rapid development.
Now, as awareness rises, groups like Trash Hero are playing an important role in Bali’s push to keep its famous beaches and temples free of rubbish.
On Saba Beach, surrounded by coconut trees and grazing cows, the garbage strewn about includes toothpaste tubes, shoes, plastic bottles, diapers, drinking straws and cigarette packets.
“There is a plastic problem in Bali. … We need time but we have started already,” Aksara told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Big things start from small things.”
Globally, scientists say, more than 8 million tonnes of plastics are dumped into the ocean each year — that’s about one truckload per minute. China, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand are the top five culprits, said Ruffo.
Aside from the impacts on human health and wildlife, the 21-country Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum estimates the cost to the region’s tourism, fishing and shipping industries at US$1.3 billion per year.
Stung by criticism, Indonesian President Joko Widodo — who has talked of creating “10 new Balis” across the archipelago to boost tourism — has been quick to act.
Last year, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, the coordinating minister for maritime affairs, launched a national action plan pledging up to $1 billion to cut ocean waste 70% by 2025.
In June, the government teamed up with Muslim clerics to tell their more than 100 million followers to choose reusable bags over plastic ones.
Jenna Jambeck, a University of Georgia professor who specialises in plastic waste and marine debris, said Indonesians had become leaders on the issue out of a desire “to protect their amazing resources and beautiful country”.
Bali’s most popular tourist beaches are now cleaned of trash at least once a day by local authorities using heavy machinery. Mass cleanups are organised at least three times a year on Bali and across Indonesia, bringing together tens of thousands of tourists and residents.
Despite this, the rubbish problem on Bali was so bad late last year that officials declared a “garbage emergency”.
“If you’re finding plastic on the beach, it’s already too late,” said Ruffo. “It should never be there in the first place. How do you stop it at the source? There is no one fix or silver bullet.”
Tracing the origins of the trash on Bali’s beaches is difficult, but experts estimate up to 80% comes from the island itself.
Rubbish collected from hotels and villages by informal workers is often dumped in rivers and then carried out to sea before eventually finding its way back to the coastline.
Bali desperately needs to improve its landfill sites, invest in more recycling facilities, carry out regular trash collections and expand its piped water supply, experts say.
Businesses, meanwhile, should redesign products or change materials so they are easier to reuse or recycle, said Jambeck.
Governments also can make a difference by requiring a certain amount of recycled content in products, banning plastic bags or taxing single-use plastics, she added.
In Ubud, the local company Rumah Kompos has six trucks that collect waste from hotels and homes. The trash is then separated at the company’s depot to recycle, turn into compost or send to a landfill.
A new $1-million recycling facility, funded by the government, will help Rumah Kompos expand its capacity later this year, said manager Supardi Asmorobangun.
The facility will host local children at weekend “green camps”, with a cinema showing films on climate change and plastic waste, he said.
The company has also begun trials of free reusable water bottles at schools in Ubud.
“My dream for the next five years is for every village on Bali to do [rubbish] separation,” Asmorobangun said. “We must do it now, not tomorrow.”
New technologies and an army of informal rubbish collectors and scavengers are also key tools, experts said.
At Sanur Kaja village in Denpasar, garbage gatherers are reaping the financial rewards of joining a pilot project run by Gringgo Trash Tech, reflected in a row of brand-new motorcycles parked near the waste collection facility.
The company began a self-funded project last year using existing waste infrastructure to improve recycling and collection.
Apps and GPS helped create a zoning system in the community of 5,000 residents, enabling garbage gatherers to become better-organised and more efficient. As a result, they can collect more rubbish from more households to increase their earnings.
“If these guys stop working, this city will be shut down in less than a week,” said Gringgo co-founder Olivier Pouillon.
Besides improving coordination with the local authority, the Gringgo app provides the latest prices for recyclable waste.
The system now serves 60-65% of the village, with three times as much rubbish collected, said Pouillon.
“The quickest way to stop the pollution is to track where the waste is going, and that’s exactly what we’ve done,” he said.
Thomson Reuters Foundation
“My dream for the next five years is for every village on Bali to do (rubbish) separation” SUPARDI ASMOROBANGUN Rumah Kompos, Bali wastemanagement firm