JAKARTA, Nov 30, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Residents on a string of coral-fringed
islands off Jakarta’s coast are battling a tidal wave of trash, with more
than 40 tons of rubbish collected daily over the past week, an official said.
Indonesian authorities have deployed an army of staff and a fleet of boats
to help clear rubbish-infested shorelines and surrounding waters,
underscoring the Southeast Asian archipelago’s mammoth marine waste problem.
It is the world’s second biggest contributor to marine debris after China,
producing about 1.29 million metric tons annually.
This week’s clean-up operation is centred on an area known as the Thousand
Islands, a popular day trip from the traffic-clogged capital.
Residents of one island have reported dead turtles in the area, although
Yusen Hardiman, head of the region’s environment department, said it was not
yet clear if it was a result of ingesting rubbish.
A sperm whale was found dead last week in a marine park off Sulawesi
island with 115 plastic cups and 25 plastic bags in its stomach.
Indonesia’s marine waste problem has become so bad that officials last year
declared a “garbage emergency” after a stretch of coast in Bali was swamped
with rubbish.
Some 264 sanitation officers are involved in the ongoing clean-up of the
Thousand Islands, while 13 boats regularly patrol trash-choked areas of the
archipelago with another 10 set to be added to the fleet next year.
Most of the rubbish clogging the chain of islands is from elsewhere,
flushed into the ocean by bulging rivers or swirling currents during the
monsoon season, Hardiman said in a statement late Thursday.
Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands, has pledged to reduce
marine plastic waste by 70 percent by 2025.
But poor waste-processing infrastructure and low awareness among its 260
million inhabitants prove major obstacles.