In Reply to: Help!!! NO plastik bags posted by jennyburke2526 on Monday, 17. January 2005 at 14:21 Bali Time:
Thanks for that reminder Jenny. Just to reinforce the point I have added on a story from the archives that I wrote last year.
At the bottom of the story I will link you to some photos of what we have helped do in Bali with our plastic bags.
CBE
Cracker
P.T. Aswang, Sanur Rubbish Tip
The day had promised so much. Troy had asked me to join him on a behind the scenes look at a Bakso kitchen and we spent the morning enjoying this experience and discussing how we would relay it to you all.
He then asked myself and Made, the Adopta co-op driver, to follow him back to Sanur. He had something he really wanted me to see.
I had no idea what it could be, but have come to trust his judgement and followed along.
After 20 or so minutes we finally turned into a driveway that was guarded by the usual set of gates that led into a palm and grass verge lined avenue that held great promise to the uninitiated.
My assumption of great promise was soon to prove so completely wrong. We were stopped about 200 mts down this driveway by a security guard that insisted we sign in. Yep, that's right, we signed into a rubbish tip.
We slowly followed a steady line of trucks that headed down the single lane compacted dirt road that weaved its way through what seemed to be the older part of the tip. Once committed to this road there was no way back. One way, all the way. Another truck was soon behind us, pushing up hard as if that can somehow speed the process up. I was still perplexed as to why I was here but I knew Troy had good reason.
As we drove on I began to see his point.
.
This weaving track was lined on each side with drainage ditches that were obviously designed to take the ooze that flowed from the massive rubbish piles and send it off to some other destination.
Benoa Harbour is not far away, I can only assume that is where it ends up after the rainy season.
I was dumbfounded by the plastic bags, they were meters high in most places and yet something seemed not right as I looked at them. We rounded the next corner and it all came together. Every bag was open. Not burst open and spilling contents, but deliberately opened and emptied. In front of me now was the answer to why.
The area where the trucks were now tipping was covered with hundreds of people all eagerly awaiting the next truck and its putrefying contents. The trucks would tip their load and before the job was complete the masses would be swinging their sharpened hooks into the pile to try and claim the best of the bags. It was all pot luck mind you, the bags could contain anything at all, some good, some bad, some downright disgusting.
I have to tell you that by this time I was gagging. The smell was overpowering to me and I had to keep the windows up as much as possible. Troy seemed immune each time he wandered back from his car to ours for a chat as we waited for trucks to stop and unload their cargo
I watched in dismay not believing what I was seeing. This was going on in Sanur, not far from some of the nicest hotels you could ever wish to stay at.
I knew that the Phillipines had such places, but I had no inkling that Bali was in the same boat. My mind was swirling with thoughts of the damage we Westerners had reeked here without any thought as to what we were creating.
My video camera was running the whole time and most of my reactions were captured but cannot be written in good conscience here.
The scene was hectic, as someone ripped open a bag they scoured the contents with a trained eye for goods of value, then began to hit recyclable things with their hook and flick them with practised precision into the large basket they carried on their back. If items of food were found they were tossed in the direction of a lady crouched next to the drainage ditch that separated it into different piles for re-use at meal time.
The sight of this overwhelmed me. I knew we had poverty in Bali, but this was below a level I thought it had gotten to. In places on top of the rubbish piles the more enterprising of them had built small Warungs with benches and stools, all made from discarded rubbish of course. The few that sat at these benches ate heartily of a meal that may well have been shared with one of us. Unfortunately we had our share a day or two ago.
They didn't care though. It was a meal.
I began to focus more on individual people and look to their faces and body language. It soon became obvious that to most here this was their job, no different to a waiter or a policeman. They smiled, waved to me and in general seemed not to be overly upset with what they were doing. Some though, hid their faces when they saw me and had the body language of the beaten. They seemed on the verge of giving up. I felt for them most of all.
As we slowly moved along the road the problem just grew. This place is huge. In one part of the tip I estimated that the rubbish towered 7 mts above the road. Almost all of it was plastic bags. Anything that could be recycled had been. What was left was the bane of all mankind, now, and for decades to come, the plastic bag.
It has to stop.
We had now covered about 1.5kms of this road with this huge raft of plastic stretching as far as I could see in any direction. My resolve was beginning to harden and my thoughts were turning to practical solutions that could be applied here.
Then we rounded another bend.
It hadn't hit me that all of these people not only scavenged for their food and living here but they also lived here. Now the proof was right in front of me.
Troy pulled over and we got out to join him. We were obviously in an older part of the tip and the smells were less powerful than a kilometre back. What better place to set up a village than the least smelly bit.
A village it was too.
There were shanties of all shapes and sizes constructed from whatever came to hand.
We entered the village area by crossing a single plank over a putrid stream that was really too thick to flow anywhere. A bubbling ooze that would snuff out most life that it came in contact with.
My first step into this floating village felt quite surreal. I thought the heat or emotion had the better of me, but in truth the ground was moving. Their shantytown was built on ground as fragile as their very existence. The rubbish below had become a mere trampoline as the plastic could not really compact to the firmness of Mother Earth. I literally bounced across this place as we went to visit some of the families that were still at home.
The smiles we received as we wandered through soon brought both Troy and myself to tears. We went from hiding a sniffle from each other to openly shedding a tear very quickly.
Troy had been here before and brought many meals to the people that lived here but was still as affected as I was.
It was hard not to be.
One young fella had found for himself a large cardboard box about 3mts by 2 mts and 1 mt high. He propped up the sides, cut in a door and waterproofed the roof with plastic sheeting. It was his castle. He urged me to look inside at his bedroom and his bedding made of any soft scrap he could lay on for comfort.
He was proud, and rightly so.
It made me think that a simple thing such as having something to call your own can give a man the dignity to fight back.
Possessions may be somewhat materialistic in certain contexts, in others they may give a person the reason to go on.
He had reason.
We came across groups sitting recycling bits of machinery, working as a team to survive. We found kids as young as 2 yrs that had never been anywhere but the tip in their life. One youngster had not been off the pile of plastic that the village was built on. These kids had plastic bags to sleep on and an old tarp for a roof and walls.
What happens in the monsoon though?
Disease, Pestilence, maybe a silent death that simply goes unrecorded and unnoticed.
These kids need a chance.
These people need a chance.
This Island needs a chance
This is not some remote part of the world that we may not be able to get to. This is somewhere most of us will drive past at some stage in our life, many of us already have, we just didn't know what was there.
Now we do.
A Moral Dilemna
The job that these people do is one that has to be done. If not, the Island would be in greater peril.
Recycling is more crucial here than on a larger landmass such as Australia and we know how much we need it.
The problem is that a saturation point will be, and probably already has been, reached.
This is not about getting these people away from working on the tip, it is about where they go at the end of a days work, what they have to eat and where they lay their head.
It is also about giving them something to strive for.
There is not a person there that would not like to see their children go on to a better life.
What we don't have to see happen is these people not getting reasonable food and water as well as some basic health and education for the children.
The Hard Part
Can we fix it? I don't know that we can.
Can we help? You Bloody betcha
Next time you are in Bali buy yourself a carry bag for your day-to-day purchases. Maybe a little one for ducking to the supermarket and a larger one for those clothes shopping days.
Refuse any plastic bags that are offered and use your own bag. If you do end up with plastic bags, put them all in one and give them back to a stall owner before you leave.
If every plastic bag were used twice we would only need to produce half as many. If they don't get used again even better. While the stall owners have bags they will not need to purchase more.
To help the people working there directly, all we can do is start to deliver some of the basics. Some expats are already doing this but need our help.
Rice, Clean Water, Gloves, Hats, Insect Repellent are just a few of the things that spring to mind.
We are currently working on a drop off point for those that wish to help out and would also like any input you may have on alleviating this overall problem.
I don't know what else to say other than thank you for your time spent reading this and here's hoping that, together, we can make a difference.
CBE
Cracker and Rae