Follow just about any tourist or urban Balinese on their daily rounds and chances are you will see them accumulate between 5 and 10 plastic bags. Groceries. Offerings. Souvenirs. Clothes. Rice. Cigarettes. Fruit. No matter how small the purchase, it is not deemed complete until it is put into at least one plastic bag.
There are now about 3.5 million people on Bali. Let’s conservatively estimate that only 2 million of them are in the cash economy, buying things. That’s still 10 to 20 MILLION plastic bags a day being burned, buried, tossed over the nearest river bank or ending up in dumpsites. Hundreds of millions of plastic bags are being discarded every month in Bali.
Muriel Ydo, the driving force behind the Clean Up Bali campaigns in 1999 and 2000, has become an expert on numbers like this. After 13 years on Bali, many of them actively involved in waste management issues and education, she’s proud to be called Ibu Sampah. In rallying thousands of people from all walks of life to participate in collecting and separating waste for the Clean Up Bali campaigns, she’s learned all about what goes where, and how it gets there.
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There is some good news — hard plastic, metal and glass are being recycled in several collection centres here in Bali," she explains. She points to Peduli 93 (I Care) as a model. Muriel met Pak Muditha 9 years ago when he was first advised to start a waste processing plant by a German tourist. It was a wise business decision. Pak Muditha both collects and recycles waste at Peduli 93. He’s very pleased to be helping Bali and is prospering as well -— he has just set up a new plant.
What goes on there? "I couldn’t believe my eyes," said Muriel. "There were literally tons of bottles, mountains of plastic. Hundreds of women were removing labels and caps and carefully sorting bottles by colour and type. The many types of hard plastic (PET, HPVC, PP etc) can be recycled but not combined. After sorting, the plastic is chipped, cleaned and sent to Surabaya. These pellets of non-virgin plastic are sold to factories making strapping, buckets and other products. Unfortunately the process used to melt and recycle these pellets is in itself polluting, but it’s the only option at this point."
Except for thick transparent ones, plastic bags can’t be recycled in Indonesia yet, so there’s no point putting them in the recycling bin. However, the stronger ones can be re-used many times. Some enterprising recyclers began to make small articles out of old plastic bags a while ago. Then entrepreneurs decided that they could improve on the products and began to buy packets of NEW plastic bags with which to make them. Muriel shows me her stylish black carry-all made of recycled plastic strapping. For a time there was a successful business making these, but then others started copying the designs using new strapping. Talk about missing the point.
After the huge efforts of mobilizing the Clean Up Bali campaigns, Muriel is convinced that the real issue is education, not cleaning up. "Some of the banjars are now realizing that waste management is a serious issue that impacts directly on their tourism industry and the health of their children. It’s not a big investment to teach people not to litter, to separate garbage at source, recycle and re-use what they can. In the long run, it is cheaper than repeated visits to the doctor for respiratory infections, tummy upsets and malaria." So what is needed first is an awareness campaign, education in the schools, legislation and proper infrastructure.
If you live in a desa where the local people have become concerned about waste management, you can sponsor a few banjar members to take a waste management course with Yayasan IDEP. IDEP will send a trainer to the banjar to discuss waste separation, recycling and composting options, help the village get this organized and be available for follow-up.
There is some waste collection in Bali, which ends up in dumpsites. Organic and inorganic waste is all dumped together and fires are common. Food sealed in plastic bags and thrown away release gases as it decomposes, and this can cause spontaneous ignition in the dry season. The dumps emit toxic smoke, pollute waterways and create convenient water pockets for the mosquitoes that carry malaria and dengue fever.
An option might be to provide plenty of small stations around the island for sorted waste, then privatise garbage collection so there would be a financial incentive to ensure that it reached the pemulung. Separating organic waste for composting would cut down a huge amount of rubbish that now ends up in dumpsites.
We can be more mindful of our own consumption patterns and carry a big basket or backpack in the car so we can refuse plastic bags when shopping. When there’s no alternative but to accept them, re-use plastic bags until they fall apart. Wash all your hard plastic bottles —- Aqua, cleaning agents etc – and leave them where the pemulung can collect them. These thin men cycling around town with their panniers full of rubbish are doing a valuable service to the community. It’s a hard life and they earn very little; we can make it easier for them to make a living and help keep Bali clean. Ask your supermarket to start selling cloth carrying bags so patrons have an option not to use plastic. Encourage markets not to use Styrofoam, which can’t be recycled at all.
Readers who are interested in sponsoring a banjar for an IDEP course on waste management, please call 977088.
