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UAE nonprofit organization to help Indonesia tackle plastic waste
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People walk along the trash covering Kedonganan Beach in Badung, Bali, on March 20, 2024. (Antara/Fikri Yusuf)
I
ndonesia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to collaborate on reducing plastic waste in Indonesian waters.
The MoU was signed on Thursday in Abu Dhabi by officials from Indonesia’s Office of the Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister and the UAE’s Ministry of Climate Change and Environment, according to a press release from the Tourism and Creative Economy Ministry.
Abu Dhabi-based nonprofit organization Clean Rivers is the implementation partner for the collaborative effort, which will “focus on designing and delivering of economically sustainable circular waste systems,” according to a press release issued by Clean Rivers on Thursday, following an initial announcement made at the AVPN Global Conference 2024 in UAE capital earlier this week.
“The MoU will also facilitate the productive exchange of information and best practices focusing on reducing the influx of plastic pollution into the ocean and expediting river clean-ups in Indonesia,” reads the release.
Read also: Research: Ciliwung among the world's most polluted rivers
Indonesia’s Ciliwung has been named one of the world’s most polluted rivers. In 2020, researchers estimated that the weight of plastic waste from all rivers in Jakarta totaled 2,100 tonnes, according to an article published in The Conversation.
The researchers monitored levels of macroplastics (plastics with a size of more than 5 millimeters) in five locations of the Ciliwung in May 2018 and found 20,000 macroplastic items flowing into the ocean per hour, far exceeding the findings for the Chao Phraya River in Thailand (5,000 items per hour) or the Seine river in France (700 items).
