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About 100 meters from the shore, the boat driver eased off on the gas, and then to my incredible amazement, got up and started to chuck all sorts of rubbish left by the boat’s passengers into the sea.

Plastic bottles, coke cans, empty cigarette packets, glass bottles. Anything he could find. And a few diapers for good measure too. All this shit was soon floating around, creating a mini cesspit of filth - not that anyone on the boat could care less of course...

Sadly, I've seen this on every ship or boat I travelled. People would stand right next to a rubbish bin and toss their stuff overboard. They appear to encourage their kids to do so as well. The ships left a trail of plastic bags and crisp packets in their wake.

It would be good if Pelni at least would put up some educational boards and say something about this over the loudspeakers.

In all fairnes, it's not just Indonesians, of course.

Education on proper rubbish disposal is obviously not a priority in Indonesia.My husband and i walked several kms down Legain St in Bali clutching an empty cool drink can and two iceream wrappers before we found antyhing that resembled a rubbish bin!
On the spot fines are the only way to deter "litter louts"but who is going to police it?
Cheers laurs

on the spot fines is a good idea

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In all fairnes, it's not just Indonesians, of course.

Yes, some areas of Fiji are pretty damm disgusting and their cruise ships and managed islands do a great job, but on some even Yasawa Islands, there is just so much plastic and stuff lying a round in one village I visited,and yet another village on the main island which had a connection to the first English fella who was not eaten - well they had some real pride in their set-up, it being a mini tourism operation.

But even in Australia we have so many litterers about as just looking at roadsides and the ammount of gunk that gets washed down drains to at least these days be caught in some form of catcher - but the number of cig butts, plastic bags, wrappers etc., and then deliberate industrial waste dumping - we're not so innocent in collective terms.

Great points and thanks IndCoup for raising the subject again.
i've said before that Indonesia in some ways reminds me of Britain in the '70's, no idea about safety, politically incorrect, no concerns for pollution, generally low education across the board and apathy as far as ones personal effect on others.

After moving to the US I was awakened to fact that litering was not cool. I remember how a local high street in London would look on a saturday night...ankle deep in McDonalds, KFC and fish & chips wrappers. The general attitude was 'chuck it on the floor, who cares?' In the US it is entirely different and it makes a huge difference.

When you grow up in an environnment where chucking your shit anywhere you like is okay, then people will think its okay to continue. Indonesia is a beautiful country, but people have not been educated that pollution is bad, because every other twat is polluting. The government had not taken a lead and local community governments have not taken a lead. Not enough resources and the resources that are available are subject to nepotism and corruption.

Back in 1993 I visited an American friend who was living in Bali. We had both worked for a recycling organization in California, and he had assembled a large amount of data, planning to set up a recycling center in Kuta. Short version is he got a grant of $50,000 ffrom the Indo government...as long as a local was in charge. He organized all the paperwork, arranged for 2 Balinese locals to be the head honcho's and handed it off to them. They didn't get their paperwork in on time. No grant, no recycling center.

When I ride around Bali on my motorbike I love the late afternoon scene, of people sitting out enjoying the cool of the afternoon, village scenes and the landscape. One thing I do not like is the burning of plastic garbage. Balinese have these stinking, smoldering piles of garbage by the roadside. Lack of education means they think burning plastic is a cheap effective way of redusing garbage, when in fact it creates a toxic particle cloud that pollutes the air and covers crops.

Attitudes and processes take time to change. The way you might start in Bali is to do a pilot program in one small area, highlighting the importance of keeping the place clean, and creating an organized plastic recycling center, very much needed on a small island with 3 million people.

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Originally posted by ohdear:
on the spot fines is a good idea

that made me laugh

on the spot fines are as common as rain in indonesia but mean squiddly, you just pay for the police chiefs new motor

bogor is a disgusting mess as well though there are clean places like semarang, rangkasbitung...

IS anyone still out there. So, is the trash thing caused by tourists/travelers throwing their garbage away without thinking about the consequences and locals seeing that thinking its ok? Or is it that island societies have always been able dispose of refuse by chucking it because until relatively recently their trash was extremely biodegradable non plastics based?

i think that in some places, where for most of history their trash was biodegradable stuff, it never mattered if you threw shit out (banana peels, coconut shells, old worn-out grass skirts, etc) and with teh plastification of the world, folks have just kept up old habits of tossin' stuff out.

if i remember correctly, even in the usa, litter was a major problem (esp along roads out car windows) as late as the 70's, right, golden oldies?


zopa

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right, golden oldies?

Ahem.

Lady Bird Johnson is generally credited with the "Keep America beautiful" campaign. There were billboards telling us not to litter. (Irony alert)

From my years of working in large public events, I learned that most people will deposit litter appropriately if there is a nearby receptacle.

In my experience, the main culprits of litter (not counting the companies that make the packaging) in overseas tourist areas are not the Americans/Canadians/Europeans/Aussies, as we were trained not to litter, but the locals who haven't had the "no litter" meme drilled into them.

Well, them and the Coors Light drinkers.

"proper rubbish disposal"

Since they don't have trash collection or much for formal recycling or dumps, it'll end up in the same place it does now.

In my neighborhood, Seminyak, guys come round in a truck and sorts out the recyclables from the garbage. Still, around the corner from my house, locals have used an alley as a garbage dump.

Reduce - Re use - Recycle

We've got to start producing less waste, using those plastic bags a 2nd / 3rd time, and recycling them into something new.

I take a cloth bag to the supermarket, rather than use plastic bags. I still have to place my vegetables in plastic bags, which is a shame.

Waste and pollution, what a big issue and where to start, I'm not an expert, just a consumer, here in the UK the local council's are to introduce an additional tax for them to pick up our garbage! We'll have a specific amount that we are able to waste up to and then we'll get hit by a tax for throwing too much away!!

seems to me the action is at the wrong end, the manufacturers need to be taking a lead or get encouraged by OUR governments to make items using bio degradable packaging and reduce the amount that is used in packaging the item.

No ideas what you can do in cleaning up Bali, other than get a big sack and start picking up the waste, but what happens then? It's no good burying or burning the stuff. That just puts the problem somewhere else.

Is there beach clean-up initiatives that go on in Bali? Would it be possible to set up recycling services there? Is some of the trash useful for other purposes? Is billboard space cheap enough to show what is happening to Bali because of trash build-up? Is there a group of concerned travelers or expats there that would start beach clean-ups to show locals that this is an issue that should not be ignored? What did Singapore do? Oh yeah FINES.