We are so proud to be the only charity that runs a student Environmental Programme to Indonesia. Instead of building schools in different 3rd world countries, we give students an insight into frontline Climate Change and give them environmental career ideas for their future. We wanted to give you an insight into the 2024 trip.
Our trip started with a visit back to ‘Bening Saguling’ one of our Eco schools that we donate boats to on The Citarum River outside the city of Bandung in the province of Java. The children pay to go to this school with plastic bottles that their father’s fish for in the river, the father’s used to fish for fish but now they fish for plastic as the fish are either dead or too poisonous to eat.
The boats we donate to the school collect up to 1.5 tonnes of pollution a day, this is done by hand by the ‘fisherman’ and is the most effective way to clean the river in the area, the school spent money on a machine but it breaks down a lot due to the pollution getting stuck in the motor, so the old way is the most effective way! We went out in our boats and picked what we could out of the river in the searing heat, one of the items we found in amongst the pure pollution was a half rotten Louis Vuitton shoe, there was also a dead fish that had died trapped in
a plastic bag…the last time we did this was 18 months ago, it was sadly in fact worse this time, also a lot of the plant ‘hyacinth’ had grown like a weed across part of the river which means the pollution is trapped from the surface to the river bed and there is no way of getting to it. We had an amazing time as ever with the children singing and dancing and taking ‘selfies’ which they LOVE!
We then visited the local and only plastic recycling factory in Java, we had a Q&A with the management about what we do in Ireland and some simple ideas of what could be done in Indonesia. Simple ideas like areusable water bottle, bottle return in their area, local recycling bins, workshops for children making a cleanup into a treasure hunt!
We learnt from them that they are trying to introduce maggots into their food waste system to deal with the extreme amount of food waste they deal with. Other than that Indonesia is a country that is stuck in a system that if the government does not supply them with actual physical bins and a form of recycling in the home, they will have no choice but to continue to burn their rubbish or throw it in the river.
Their is no education in the schools and every shop whether it be a stall on the road or a small shop, if you are a family on the poverty line there choices are to buy tiny plastic sachets of: tea, coffee, soap, soup, juice, milkshake etc. This plastic packaging is not in any form recyclable and is created by the giant companies to help people less fortunate, it is literally like ‘The Sheriff of Nottingham’ in ‘ Robin Hood’ making money from the ‘poor’ when if the likes of: Glaxo Klein Smith, Nestle, Pfizer, Unilever etc were to create refillable bottles for these communities a lot less plastic would be made and a lot less would be burnt or end up in the river and out to the ocean.
Another conservation trust we work with is called ‘Equator ID’ this is run by the amazing ‘Mr Julius’ who works alongside the military as well as Bening Saguling, he is eternally and quite rightly saving his precious Citarum River, we headed with Mr Julius to visit a different section of The Citarum River where the military are tasked to clean the river, we also donate boats here and we went out in 2 of our boats, one of them 5 years old and the other 2 years old, these boats are used daily to clean the river but are also used when it floods to rescue families in slums from their homes, we were told they have literally saved lives, these boats cost us €300 each and we are beyond proud that whilst we are a small charity with minimal funding we are able to do what we can in a country that suffers with front line climate change in a way so many of us can never understand.
Then we got to meet ‘Zombie Fish’ … we had been waiting to see them as we only saw them looking dark and mysterious in the water outside the H&M factory on our last visit. They were INCREDIBLE and very apocalyptic! The 3 fish we saw had been out of the water for around 2 months and looked very dead… but after a few drops of water they came back to life immediately!! There is a parasitic worm that lives in them and is waiting for water. These are the only fish that have survived what has happened to the poisoning of the river, they literally feed off the toxins and plastic in the river. They are trying to introduce other fish into the river again, but we really can’t see how they would survive especially as all other types of fish in the area are non existent or so poisoned they won’t live.
The Citarum used to be the most beautiful river and in areas it still is, but this stretch of the Citarum still after 5 years from our first visit is highly polluted, poisonous. The tragedy is people still wash in it, wash their clothes and the children play in it, unfortunately this can lead to a rash that forms and if not treated in time can lead to cancer. It would be great if the fast fashion factories in the area (100’s of them) could stop pumping the poison from their dye into the rivers, this would at least help a part of what’s happening in the river. We wonder if it will ever be a river that can be used as a way of life again.
Our last day on the main land of Java was just off the coast of Jakarta, we took a boat out to what was a 9KM floating island of pollution, sadly the storm the day before had broken a lot of the island up and now it had dispersed to many more kilometres out into the ocean, but there were still mini islands of land pollution 8 metres deep, they were like icebergs that we were able to step off the boat and stand on…literally standing on an island of pollution in the ocean, it was surreal and heartbreaking, this again is an area that will always be like this until the Indonesian government do something about their pollution problem, there is nothing the Indonesians can do until the government take seriously the damage they are doing to the planet and their people.
Finally as we were returning to land the fisherman took us via an underwater fishing village, our boat glided over an entire village of small stone houses that existed 15 years ago and due to sea levels rising and Climate Change are now entirely underwater, all that was left was an electricity pole and some trees that were standing out of the water. The whole village has now moved further up the mouth of the river but so very sadly they are living in squalor in tin shacks the size of a couple of square meters, their ‘homes’ house an entire extended family and there is no lock or even front door to speak of! They also live amongst giant rats amongst other rodents, there is 1 tiny wooden shed that is the shop with all the famous plastic sachets to buy. We were guided to 1 tiny brick structure which was a house in case we needed the bathroom (a hole in the floor the size of a 50 cent coin). The locals were incredibly proud and happy to show us their area, they live simply and have accepted their ‘lot’ that their village has gone. We cannot help feel that due to Climate Change and sea levels rising their fragile village will have to move again and in less than 15 years.
We are now travelling to Bali and Gili Trawangan to visit conservation trusts that we support in this area. It’s a whole different ball game on the islands!
Week 2 in Plastic Paradise
We started our second week on the island of Bali, honeymooners dream…we couldn’t have been more horrified by how bad it was. We visited Kuta Beach, which had so many holiday makers and surfers enjoying the dreamy weather…it seems they didn’t care that they were swimming or surfing in plastic all around them! We joined the amazing Sungai Watch to do a river clean, this conservation trust was set up 4 years ago by 2 brothers who couldn’t stand the pollution that was getting out of control on the Island of Bali. They spend their lives with many, many volunteers cleaning the rivers and sadly like so much of Indonesia they are simply fire fighting! We helped them clean an illegal dump area by a small waterway, the idea is to get it before it rains and falls into the water and out to sea. This conservation group work tirelessly and try to separate and re-make items out of the immense amount of plastic they find. When we were with them just under a tonne was collected in 2 hours.
We then headed to Gili Trawangan, this island was uninhabited until 1971 and now there is hardly a spot of open land to be seen on the island, it is devastating to see what the western world has done to this island and to the people living on the island. We spent the week working closely with Chili Community and Gili Eco Trust as well as Trawangan Dive. In the mornings we worked with the school Chili Community, this is aschool run by a Malaysian lady called ‘Ain’. Ain teaches the children maths and how to live in an environmental world, the school is as plastic free as she can make it, the problem is the parents of the children don’t care and either burn their rubbish or throw it in the sea, again they don’t have a refuse system so they do what they have always done. Some of the children have been sexually abused which nothing can be done about as there is no law on the island. These children come from very poor backgrounds and mostly would live in a rat infested tin shack consisting of 2 rooms with their extended family. Saying that the children are very happy and literally love school as it is their only time to play safely. Again all these children and their families survive by the tiny plastic sachets of food, drink and washing powder/soap that are sold every few metres. They havn’t got a hope for the future.
In the afternoons our activities differed, we did a workshop on coral propagation learning about biorocks. Lombok and the Gili Islands suffered a severe earthquake 6 years ago and killed a vast stretch of coral around the islands, this in turn meant the marine life had nothing to feed off. When we were there 5 years ago you could swim a good distance in the sea without seeing a single fish all you saw was dead coral, 5 years later due to the conservation group ‘Gili Eco Trust’ the biosphere is starting to thrive again due to their coral planting. They make a steel rod sculpture attach a small electrical current to it and attach baby live coral, after months there is no sign of the steel rod just a massive coral formation with an immense amount of beautiful marine life enjoying their home. Gili Eco Trust spend their life planting corals and saving turtles from Islanders and tourists stealing their eggs alongside dealing with the endless plastic pollution that we couldn’t even begin to imagine.
We also did a tour to the ‘dark’ side of the island. Again ‘Gili Eco Trust’ have with minimal funding and a lot of fighting with the government managed to build a recycling centre, this is next to the landfill they have created for the island, The landfill unfortunately sets on fire due to the methane that builds up and also their are a herd of cows that live on the landfill, they eat what they can through the plastic packaging, so they are literally eating endless plastic as their diet, it is heartbreaking to see but this is their only form of nourishment. So between the cows burping and the methane building up in the landfill fires happen and can go on for weeks putting endless toxicity in the air.
It’s the same old story, if the government provided bins, a pick up and recycle system this problem would be significantly better. However the problem is also the endless giant 5 star hotels that are now crowding the island for the ultimate luxury get away. People who spend €10,000 plus on their holiday don’t want to think about the pollution problem and extended families huddled into a tin shack living off plastic sachets of food again supplied by the likes of: Glaxo Kline Smith, Unilever, Nestle etc and have no idea how much they are adding to the problem on the island. They want to swim with turtles in crystal blue waters, do TikTok’s and Instagram posts of them riding up the beach as the sun is setting over the volcano in Bali…meanwhile the beaches are literally choked in plastic which they manage not to see.
It is unbelievable greed and ignorance on the hoteliers front. Sadly now though it is a’ Catch 22′ situation as without this ignorant tourism the Islanders wouldn’t be able to survive.
As Westerners we are literally killing these countries.
