“The waste problem in Thousands island is very complex because we have to deal with trash from three different sources: locals, tourists and marine debris, which mostly comes from the mainland. The waste that has drifted to our beaches amounts to 60 percent of the waste on the islets,” Riza Lestari Ningsih, staff of the Community Participation and Legal Arrangement of Thousand Island Environment Agency, said on Saturday.

According to 2018 data from the agency, up to 40,000 tons of trash were found each day on the islands during the rainy season. It consisted of 17,000 tons of domestic waste, 1,600 tons of waste from tourism and 21,000 tons of drifting trash.

The trash carried to the Thousand Islands by ocean currents does not only come from the Indonesian mainland, but from other countries as well. Riza said it was not uncommon to find odd things during beach cleanups. “Some time ago I found Chinese brand cigarette boxes, a Vietnamese water bottle and Turkish snack wrappings. We also saw bath tubs and mattresses washed ashore.”

Each day, the garbage is carried from the islets to the mainland by 85 trash-collecting boats before being dumped in the Bantar Gebang landfill in Bekasi, West Java. However, Riza said, the dumpsite has nearly reached its maximum capacity and was predicted to last for only three more years.

“With the amount of trash dumped on the site having risen almost 50 percent in the last four to five years, the final site is only expected to last until 2021. So the Thousands Island regency needs to find a new way to manage its waste without having to send it to the mainland,” she said.

Piles of waste in the regency’s water had also caused trouble for its residents. Sulaiman Katur, a fisherman from Pari Island, one of the nearest islets to the mainland, said the enormous amount of trash floating in the sea had negatively affected his livelihood.

“The trash kept getting into the boat propeller, causing it to break. We often got trash in our fishing nets too,” he told The Jakarta Post by phone on Monday.

Riza said collective action was needed to solve the waste problem in Thousand Islands regency, especially to reduce trash from the sources. “At the moment we’re trying to persuade the residents to better manage their trash with the 3R movement: reduce, reuse and recycle.”

The Thousand Islands Environment Agency, Riza said, had established a waste bank in every community unit on the islets, allowing resident to dispose of their sorted household trash in return for cash.

“We plan to collaborate with state-owned Bank Negara Indonesia, so that the money collected from the waste bank could be transferred directly into the residents’ bank accounts,” Riza said.

The agency is currently trying to establish a trash collection center and intermediate treatment facility on one of the islands, which would allow the agency to process waste into energy.

Meanwhile, to reduce trash from tourists visiting the islets, the Thousand Islands Environment Agency is collaborating with the Jakarta Tourism and Culture Agency to set up ecotourism projects.

“We have planned various programs to reduce trash from tourism. Resorts and restaurants on the islands would need to pay their trash bill according to the amount of trash they produce.
We would also check tourists’ bags when they are arriving on the islands to make sure they don’t leave any trash behind,” Riza said, adding that the agency also planned to make all the homestays on the islands ecofriendly.

On average, from 800,000 to 850,000 people visit the Thousand Islands regency each year, according to the regency’s tourism and culture agency.

Riza expressed hope that by 2021 the regency could manage 100 percent of its own waste on site. “Managing all our trash on the islands would be very cost-efficient because each year we spend about Rp 3 billion [US$212,000] on gasoline to transport our waste to the mainland.” (nal)

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