Bali’s world famous Kuta Beach is drowning beneath a sea of garbage

Harry08

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Dec 5, 2017
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Is this really happening?
Bali’s palm-fringed Kuta beach has long been a favorite with tourists seeking sun and surf, but nowadays its golden shoreline is disappearing under a mountain of garbage.

Plastic straws and food packaging are strewn between sunbathers, while surfers bobbing behind the waves dodge waste flushed out from rivers or brought in by swirling currents.

“When I want to swim, it is not really nice. I see a lot of garbage here every day, every time,” Austrian traveler Vanessa Moonshine explains.


“It’s always coming from the ocean. It’s really horrible,” she adds.

Often dubbed a paradise on earth, the Indonesian holiday island has become an embarrassing poster child for the country’s trash problem.

The archipelago of more than 17,000 islands is the world’s second biggest contributor to marine debris after China, and a colossal 1.29 million metric tons is estimated to be produced annually by Indonesia.

The waves of plastic flooding into rivers and oceans have been causing problems for years — clogging waterways in cities, increasing the risk of floods, and injuring or killing marine animals who ingest or become trapped by plastic packaging.

The problem has grown so bad that officials in Bali last month declared a “garbage emergency” across a six-kilometer (3.7-mile) stretch of coast that included popular beaches Jimbaran, Kuta and Seminyak.

Officials deployed 700 cleaners and 35 trucks to remove roughly 100 tons of debris each day to a nearby landfill...
https://coconuts.co/bali/news/balis-world-famous-kuta-beach-drowning-beneath-sea-garbage/
 

davita

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Mar 13, 2012
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The garbage isn't all from Bali...the ocean current and winds blow the garbage onto the Kuta shores every year.
Most times the cleaners delay removal because the next day it happens again but it is time a massive clean-up campaign was budgeted and planned...... just like snow-removal, dust storms etc. are dealt with elsewhere.
 

tel522

Active Member
Oct 30, 2015
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I think a lot of the crap on bali beaches is from bali , because its always the same when it rains , I live next to a river in the buket which is normally dry but when it rains all the surrounding areas rubbish comes floating past , dirty buggars !

Kuta beach ,never mind the morass of plastic in the rainy season ,is generally disgusting all year round because of the raw sewage outflows from tuban , all the sh1t from kuta , nice ! ,and the current flow is kuta seminyak canggu etc , I remember reading clandestine water tests from kuta beach around 5 years ago ,because numbers of surfers were getting sick eye infections etc . The water had dangerous levels of fecal matter ! suprise suprise .

In europe such a beach would be black flagged , here it was hushed up !
 
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Harry08

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Dec 5, 2017
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10 rivers causing 95 pct of ocean plastic pollution
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2017/10/10-rivers-causing-95-pct-of-ocean-plastic-pollution.html

The ten worst rivers and the seas they flow to:

  1. Yangtze, East China Sea, Asia
  2. Indus, Arabian Sea, Asia
  3. Yellow River, Yellow Sea, Asia
  4. Hai He, Yellow Sea, Asia
  5. Nile, Mediterranean, Africa
  6. Meghna, Bay of Bengal, Asia
  7. Ganges, Bay of Bengal, Asia
  8. Amur, Sea of Okhotsk, Asia
  9. Niger, Gulf of Guinea, Africa
  10. Mekong, South China Sea, Asia

What I was asking about is is this really happening in Bali.
Kuta (cross the street from Alam KulKul) is/was my favorite spot and I was planning to return there.
If this is now under a massive pile of garbage, it makes me kinda sad.
 

harryopal

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May 5, 2016
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Just this week I read an article saying that fracking and shale oil had become much more economically viable and the oil industry was anticipating a 43% increase in plastics productionin 2018 . Worldwide this issue is huge and we tip toe around the edges of the matter and the plastics keep wrapping around everything we use and buy and there appears to be no end. I agree with the comments about swimming at Kuta and the need for a massive clean up but it is like putting a band aid on a pussy boil. It will keep oozing. But a clean up would be a good start.
 

davita

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Mar 13, 2012
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As I said, and have no hesitation to repeat, the trash on Kuta's beach happens every year. The trash floats in the ocean and comes ashore due to the seasonal western winds and currents.... so it wouldn't matter if Bali was a deserted island it would still collect trash/flotsam from other places....
That doesn't mean that Bali and visitors don't contribute...they do... and it should be curtailed, but the problem isn't as simple as some may wish to define.

"The phenomenon is a seasonal event coupled with the start of westerly winds that bring trash from Java and Sumatra, and beyond, to Bali’s shores, from December thru' February.
"The weather is extreme; waves are high, winds are strong and water level increases," Putu Eka Mertawan, head of the Badung Sanitation and Parks agency, told the Jakarta Post. "We have done our best to collect waste as fast as we can. But we just cannot go against the weather."
 

hadodi

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Nov 8, 2013
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NE Bali
The garbage isn't all from Bali...the ocean current and winds blow the garbage onto the Kuta shores every year.
Most times the cleaners delay removal because the next day it happens again but it is time a massive clean-up campaign was budgeted and planned...... just like snow-removal, dust storms etc. are dealt with elsewhere.
Not ALL, but MOST
 

dav733

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Dec 29, 2016
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I was staying in benoa last year around march 4.5 star and a very nice beach,,and it was happening every day with a king tide,,almost getting to the hotels pool,,lots of rubbish washing up,,so what did they do each morning early,,,rake it up into piles ,dig a hole in the sand and BURY IT! problem solved ??,,,Governments gotta introduce a simple buy back of recyclable rubbish,,a lot of locals would be into it I,m sure ,,
 

Devon

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Feb 1, 2021
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Sorry for reviving an old post but I’m curious - how bad is trash season really? From the videos and pictures I’ve seen it looks absolutely revolting. Yet, nobodies really talking about it online in hotel reviews, tour guides, etc.

Do the beaches get covered in trash for the whole rainy season (dec - mar) or is it just a week or two of really bad garbage piling up and then things go back to somewhat normal?

We’ve been to Bali several times but always between July and October. This time we’re looking to spend a couple of years, but may reconsider if the beaches are basically unusable for 2 or 3 months out of the year.

thanks,
D
 

dav733

Member
Dec 29, 2016
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NO ITS ON GOING FOR MONTHS..I GENERALLY IS CLEANED UP DAILY BY COUNCIL OR THE HOTELS...BUT NOT SOMUCHAT THE MONENT BYTHE HOTELS AS THEY ARE VERY QUIET...
 

harryopal

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May 5, 2016
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While debris that accumulates on the beaches world wide is not just plastic rubbish it is clear that plastics are a major contributor. The petroleum industries which produce the plastics never get mentioned but really have a moral and social responsibility to help deal with the associated problems. Manufacturing industries and retailers which seem to need everything tightly packaged in mutliple layers of plastics also manage to avoid the issues as do soft drink, juice and water producers who prefer plastics to bottles. It used to be that glass bottles had a refundable deposit.

With the world focus on climate change and the need for universal action, how long before the penny drops and an international approach to this ever increasing problem of plastic rubbish is adopted? Clearly, individual governments are loathe to take on the sectors which make profit from the mess so until the problem is addressed by an international consortium of governments these massive amounts of plastic rubbish will just continue to accumulate.

And this is hardly just an aesthetic concern. It has now been shown that plastic breaks up into micro particles eaten by fish and marine creatures and these micro particles are part of the human food chain.

The only solution has to be with nations recognizing that this needs to be addressed now... along with climate change... instead of pussy footing around as we have been doing for decades.
 

Markit

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Sep 3, 2007
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Karangasem, Bali
The only solution has to be with nations recognizing that this needs to be addressed now... along with climate change... instead of pussy footing around as we have been doing for decades.

Very moving and eloquent Harryopal BUT it would also be great if your average Balinese wouldn't just tip everything onto the ground, into the subak, into the ocean, etc. After spending 6 years in TrashHeroes here in East Bali I know one thing - the locals are to blame for 90% of what lands on the beaches. They can pray all day for "purity" and "holiness" but if they don't stop throwing their shit in every direction it aint gonna happen. I'd like to post a sniper on top of every beach here to shoot, without warning, every litterer but I suspect that might not go down too well with the government so I'd suggest the police get to charge anyone found littering with IDR100,000 on the spot. And keep it themselves! Day after that started it would all be over. I promise.
 

balibule

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Feb 6, 2009
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We’ve been to Bali several times but always between July and October. This time we’re looking to spend a couple of years, but may reconsider if the beaches are basically unusable for 2 or 3 months out of the year.

Kuta, Seminyak, Canggu etc... always gets the most rubbish piling onto the beach during rain season when household rubbish that's been dumped in dry river beds for an entire year gets washed out into the oceans by heavy rain and the wind blowing from the west blows it all back on the beach.
 

harryopal

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May 5, 2016
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Following my earlier little rant about the need for an international address to the plastic waste problem a story today from the ABC seems to support my view that we need to seriously address this issue.

Dead, sick baby turtles wash up on central Queensland beaches after eating plastic

Here's the link to the story for anyone interested.
 

JackStraw

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Mar 14, 2017
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I want to use this opportunity to plug a great organization in Bali. I'm sure many of you have heard of them:


Their Sungai Watch team recently cleaned the entire Dreamland river in just 4 days. I never thought I'd see that get taken care of and somehow, they even got government help on that. These guys are the real deal and if you have a rupiah to spare, I'm sure they'd appreciate the donation