Plastic pollution is a huge problem in Bali. It seems that every river, every beach, every village, every temple, and every household is becoming blighted by discarded bottles, bags and other plastic rubbish.
Our first step was to clean up our own act.
“You must be the change you want to see in the world.” -Gandhi
At our community we decided that enough was enough. We researched whether there are credible plastic recyclers on the island, and there are, and we put together a deal with them to pick up our plastic garbage.
It took some time for our team members to grasp the concept of recycling after a lifetime of simply throwing rubbish on the ground. But after a couple of months they caught on and embraced it.
We knew there was a breakthrough when Kadek and Komang returned from a weekend trip to their village to tell us how much they hated the “plastic sampah,” littering their home, and what a shame it was that the villagers didn’t recycle.
We really knew we had made progress when Kawenuh talked his high school principal into starting a recycling program. Kawenuh also took the lead in organizing an Eco Club at the school to operate the program and educate all of the students at the school.
We’ve now begun to expand our little recycling operation into more schools and hopefully our village of Pakse Bali. We’re hopeful of making progress, but our eyes are open to the many obstacles we will face….of which we will keep you posted.
If you’d like to help with our Bali Recycling Program, go to: Ahimsa In Action
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