Are we destroying Balinese culture by drinking, partying and littering? Bali is a gracious and religious society, are we in anyway impacting on this?

“Rivers swell and flush their trash and frothing human waste into the sea off Kuta Beach, the island's most famous tourist attraction, where bacteria bloom and the water turns muddy with dead plankton."
bali is in need of an immediate change otherwise

consequences will follow, will its reputation diminish and popularity rapidly decline? The beer swilling ignoramuses will soon get bored, and abandon Bali for some other vomit stained haven of bars, discos and massage parlors, and there will be then nothing left except the crap on the beaches?

is there anything we can do to prevent this from happening??? when i was there last it was devastating to witness this first hand.

http://www.rolefoundation.org/files/main-marine_revival.html

some people are trying over there - role just one example i know of, but it is a hard slog, with many a bitter expat just trying to maintain their status quo/lifestyle on the island while they can, and the effort to educate on basic enviro practices we do hourly at home, sadly not reinforced by western holiday makers who for whatever reason (i hope just through the excitement of holiday times and not out and out selfishness - but often i have cause to wonder) leave their desire to help the planet at home...

a tragedy in the making there - it really is

I'm glad to see something is being done, there has to be someway to help this weltering flower of beauty withstand the onslaught of Western pollution.....

good subject, i always give some coin to the ol boys that ride around on there bikes with the square boxes each side of there bikes picking up recycled plastics and paper.
and forever stuffing plastic in me pockets when surfing over there.......
i reckon were pretty much the same except we bury ours so ya can't see it

I do agree with the previous messages that Bali is a beautiful island and that yes it is being ruined by huge amounts of rubbish that is lying around the place. And yes some visitors dont do the right thing and think that they can do as they please when away from home. However I would also like to point out that even the Balinese themselves are at times their own worst enemies when it comes to the disposal of rubbish. I have seen beach side venders and sellers simply throw their rubbish on the sand rather than walk 5 mts to put it to a bin and seem to have little regards for their environment. It doesnt always leave a good impression to anyone.

yes I totally agree, we shouldn't completely blame ourselves for it but none the less it would be devastating for bali to continue down this path of destruction.

Indo has world class surfing, and we cant let it become just something of the past that we tell stories to people about how there ONCE was a beautiful island with the greatest surfing known to man...

I don't think the litter is solely a problem in Bali
Indonesia has a lot of work to do to clean up its rubbish problem
With a densely populated country and very poor people with little education it will take a lot work from its governing bodies
Most of its harbours look like plastic bag cities
The big Indo companies love wrapping everything in plastic and the people think nothing of opening stuff up and throwing the plastic away
I'm sure you would of all witnessed locals tossing rubbish over the side of ferries in many places in the archipeligo
Hopefully the locals and visitors can help can get on top of the problem before its too late
I wonder if the surf charters are leading by example.
Some harbours in the Ments are a disgrace

regarding the litter problem - unfortunately it has nothing to do with aussie bogans.

the litter problem in Bali/Indo has been around for decades...waaay before the bogan invasion.

Select to expand quote

default said...

regarding the litter problem - unfortunately it has nothing to do with aussie bogans.

the litter problem in Bali/Indo has been around for decades...waaay before the bogan invasion.

Correctamundo!

At least, for now, the problem isn't so bad in the nearby islands. They burn their rubbish every night in Lembongan for example. Not terribly enviro friendly but far better than having all that crap floating in the ocean...especially with their marine life. We're pushing super hard to educate people on the remote islands to try and stop the inevitable of it all turning into one big Kuta 5hithole. It all comes down to education, or lack of. I'm always super stoked though when I see my local mates in Bali keeping their area clean.

I don't know if it was just a ocean current thing, but my last trip to Indo in June, I noticed significantly less rubbish in the water around Kuta/Legian. For all my past trips, a wipeout in Kuta meant surfacing with rubbish stuck to your face. I hardly saw a piece of rubbish in the water for the few weeks I was in Indo. I hope that's a small sign of change.

Cheers everyone for your posts, last time i was in Bali was 3 years ago and its great to know there was been a dramatic improvement since then and hopefully the government will improve education and litter collection system, and we can also do our small part to dispose of trash properly so bali can continue to be a paradise of endless waves and friendly locals.

Come on guys, they're their own worst enemies. Balianese don't care. They throw their rubbish it the gutters that eventually flow to the ocean. They don't care; filthy old hole in my opinion. We can't fix everyone's problems, at some point they have to want to fix it.

I lived in South Sulawesi for much of 2000. There were no tourists where I was staying and the litter problem was practically non existent. I was living in a small kampung with a nice family and they were very proud of their village and kept the small and sparse houses clean.
The problem is that in most parts of Indo, specifically the cities and ports, some of the services such as regular rubbish collection and maintenance of water ways, sewerage etc is non existent or mostly inadequate.. Most of the municipal funds end up in the corrupt coffers of both local officials and ultimately to the cronies in Jakarta. Hence very little is spent on these services.

iw as y to didgusted on my first trip there this year, problem seems to be with the government, the locals at the beach bars in legion/ seminyak clean up there strip every day but no rubbish collection happens so bins are left overflowing with dogs scavenging ect.. problem could easily be solved give paying jobs to locals ,there is to many people selling the same s..t turn half of them into clean upengineers, arm them with dingys, out boards and a b ig bin and things could be on the improve real quik,the people arnt lazy just un educated,simple as it may sound if tourist on the beach all picked up one peice of plastic out of the water each that alone would eliminate an estimate of 3-5 thousand peices per day, just athought

Select to expand quote

Radman said...
the people arnt lazy just un educated,

Judging by your grammar, spelling and your post in the GW thread...sounds like you'd qualify.

Select to expand quote

Radman said...
arm them with dingys, out boards and a b ig bin and things could be on the improve real quik,

Even better, what about jetski's or speedboats! That would really get things moving along quickly. On the land we could arm them with segways or motorised skateboards. (with off road wheels)
You've really got it sussed after your first visit to Bali radman....

^^


hahahahah