When people hear the word Bali they will get a mental image of a beautiful tropical Indonesian paradise. In reality, the island like many other places in the world, has a massive plastic and waste problem. However, a group of young locals is trying their best to tackle the issue and you can get involved too.

Published 9 months ago, updated 7 months ago

Source:  The Guardian

Bali produces 1.6m tonnes of waste a year, 303,000 tonnes of it plastic. More than half of this goes uncollected, including 33,000 tonnes that gets into Bali’s waterways. During monsoon season, piles of waste from the neighbouring island of Java bury its coastlines. While data varies, one estimate says 1.3m tonnes of Indonesia’s unmanaged plastic may be polluting the ocean every year. And that is just a small part of the millions of tonnes floating in from elsewhere.

Where to even begin in cleaning up that kind of waste? In an ideal world it would be dealt with upstream, with circular waste systems and minimal or reusable packaging. But for now it seems as if the only answer is for people to wade in and pick it up themselves.

All over the world, individuals, groups and governments are picking up the baton and launching initiatives against the rubbish filling the land and oceans. Their efforts range from local beach cleanups, to innovative strategies such as the “bubble barrier” that is being trialled in the Netherlands, to international efforts such as the Ocean Cleanup.

Sungai Watch in Bali is one of these many valiant teams. It was set up by Kelly Bencheghib and her siblings Gary and Sam, who are French-born but grew up on the beaches of Bali and became aware of the growing plastic problem from a very young age. As teenagers, they started a weekly cleanup, roping in schoolmates and local businesses. “Back then, everyone looked at us in a bit of a weird mood. They were really asking the questions: why do you even bother? It’s just going to disappear with the waves,” Kelly says.

Every week, the Sungai Watch staff don waders and gloves and plunge into the waterways around Bali, where they have strung up their big plastic barriers. Along with volunteers, they work their way through the heaps of waste that has built up against the barriers, stuffing it into rubbish bags and slowly, steadily, clearing the filth. The work is gruelling, and yet there is deep satisfaction, even if just temporarily, in watching the rivers open up again. “You do get used to it, strangely enough. But you always need at least a few minutes to adapt as you go into a river.”

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How You Can Help:

Sungai Watch has advised Noonsite that all sailors and visitors to Bali are welcome to join their volunteer cleanups, which they conduct weekly at five different location in Bali. Their registration page is regularly updated with future event details. Additionally, they welcome any donation – large or small as they are currently fundraising for 3 million USD to remove 3,000,000kg of non-organic waste from Bekasi, Java- Indonesia’s most polluted region.

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Related News:

• Incredibly Promising:  The Bubble Barrier Extracting Plastic from a Dutch River (The Guardian 2022)

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Related Links:

• Sungai Watch
• The OceanCleanUp
• Surfers Against Sewage

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