A screenshot from environmental organization Sungai Watch’s video detailing their plastic management technology, which is supposed to slow plastic pollution in Bali’s rivers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IOsm_m6xIw Numerous grassroots movements, NGOs, and volunteers are using Indonesia’s pandemic border closure to battle Bali’s long-standing plastic pollution problem, cleaning up rivers and forests that have been littered with tourism-related plastic and trash. While Bali’s trash problems are fairly well documented, the root of the problem is decades of unsustainable tourism paired with an underdeveloped waste management infrastructure and an increase in global marine pollution. Tourism is a massive economic driver in the archipelago and has grown at a breakneck pace in recent years. Between 2010 and 2019, Bali’s tourism more than doubled from 2.57 million to 6.3 million visitors. However, as the tourism and hospitality markets have skyrocketed, the island’s infrastructure has stalled — particularly its waste management, transportation, and water treatment facilities — leaving it unequipped to deal with the massive influx of visitors. Gus Angung head of Bali’s tourism board elaborated on the issue in an interview with ABC News In Depth. The infrastructure is the problem here in Bali. Traffic and rubbish. The number one problem in Bali. Bali has already had tourism [for] more than 100 years. All of the money comes in, but 70 percent of the money goes out of Bali because the business is not operated by [the] Balinese people. The way of thinking has to change. On average in Bali, per capita, a tourist uses 3.5 times more plastic per day than a local resident. Because Bali — like much of Indonesia — has no centralized waste management system, most trash ends up in the island’s rivers, which eventually carry it to the ocean. However, during the country’s rainy season, storms at sea wash trash back onto Indonesian shores, blighting its beaches and creating a never-ending cycle of pollution. Bali experienced a particularly troubling rainy season this year as its beaches were inundated with trash. During a January 4, 2021 beach cleanup, one citizen staged a protest by dressing up as a mermaid and posing in the fields of trash that littered the beach. Mermaid in a sea of…trash? LOOK: A person dressed as a mermaid lies on Kuta Beach covered in trash in Bali, Indonesia on Monday, January 4. ?: Dwi Duarsa via Reuters pic.twitter.com/v13S8wqMDk — Rappler (@rapplerdotcom) January 4, 2021 During a single beach cleanup, it’s not uncommon for 30–60 tons of garbage to be bagged. Denise Hardesty, a research scientist at Australia’s CSIRO science agency who specializes in global plastic pollution, told the Guardian that there is a “tremendous amount” of plastic being washed ashore, and she expects the situation will only get worse. It’s not new and it’s not surprising and it happens every year, and it’s been growing over the last decade. The rubbish had likely not traveled far and there would be many other beaches on the Indonesian archipelago suffering a similar fate. Indonesia produces about 6.8 million tons of plastic each year, with about 90 percent of it ending up as streetside litter, in landfills, or in the ocean — and that’s not even considering the tons of trash that are imported from Australia and Western countries each year. The Balinese government hopes to curb that number and reduce its plastic production by 70 percent by 2025. To do so, they have undertaken a number of initiatives aimed at reducing their trash problem, though few have been successful. For instance, in December 2018 Bali Governor announced that the province would implement a ban on single-use plastic bags, which was widely ignored. The Coronavirus pandemic has further exacerbated the island’s plastic problem as people rely on disposable PPE gear and single-use plastic for takeaway at restaurants. Some researchers estimate that globally, the pandemic has resulted in an additional 1.6 million tons of plastic pollution a day. Though the government is struggling to combat the island’s trash problem, individuals and communities are stepping up in big ways to try to stem the tide of plastic pollution. Like most countries, Indonesia’s borders became effectively closed to international tourists in March 2020. For Bali — where an estimated 70–80 percent of the economy is based on tourism — this was a devastating blow. But even before the pandemic, some said that Bali’s natural resources, reputation, and tourism sector were threatened by the immense amount of plastic pollution. Photos I took of piles of trash on #bali #beaches including famed surfer beach #Kuta.