NZ contributing to Indonesia's rubbish mountains

Anna: "It was a huge mountain of rubbish, looking up you could see the outlines of people working right at the top."

Plastic has never been at the forefront of my mind. I appreciate the handy little containers most of my groceries come in, but I’ve never given it a second thought once I’ve put it out for the recycling truck to collect.

That all changed with my trip to Indonesia to investigate New Zealand’s plastic trade relationship with the country. It turns out many products that I assumed were recycled in New Zealand were being sent to landfills, stockpiled or exported to places like Indonesia for processing.

Between the start of 2018 and the end of February this year, New Zealand sent 13,829 tonnes of plastic to Indonesia.

In Java, where the recycling plants that New Zealand sends plastics to are located, I visited Bantargebang, South East Asia’s biggest open landfill. Thousands of families live there, with the parents spending their days looking through rubbish for items that can be recycled. It was a huge mountain of rubbish, looking up you could see the outlines of people working right at the top. Down at the bottom, kids played with kites, goats  roamed the roads and sheep grazed at the plastics that lined the ground.

One of the issues is that some people in Indonesia are worried that the higher-grade plastic that New Zealand sends decreases the value of plastic collected locally for recycling, which means less money for the people working in this area. And there are also major environmental issues that people I talked to were concerned with.

The rubbish tips of Indonesia are a stark contrast to Bali, where the usual holiday photos only contain picture-perfect backdrops. However, I visited during peak-rainy season, meaning a huge amount of pollution washed up on beaches each morning.

This is not to say everything is doom and gloom. Locals are fighting back against the plastic pollution.

An organisation called Trash Hero, which is spread across Indonesia, works hard to promote sustainable living and run weekly beach clean ups.

Locals Vaughan (who is originally from New Zealand) and Evie told me about the efforts they go to, to help clean up their local beach. In one instance, they described attempting to gather plastic that had broken down so much they had to sweep it into bags, saying it looked like a snow-scattered beach.

Goats grazing among the rubbish in a landfill in Indonesia

I also headed out to Bali’s Green School, which is set to open a new school in New Zealand. Here, students and teachers spoke passionately about their environmental initiatives, such as turning cooking oil into fuel for the bus and having a trash for class system where local children could bring a bag of rubbish each week and exchange it for English lessons. Some of the classes included putting theory into action such as creating environmental-business plans, like encouraging store owners near the beach to swap plastic straws for reusable ones.

In Bandung, I visited a recycling plant where almost any plastic could be turned into something new. Old bottles and containers of almost anything were used, with the owner David talking to me about the various uses for plastics in items like clothing, rope and bags.

One of the issues is that some people in Indonesia are worried that the higher-grade plastic that New Zealand sends decreases the value of plastic collected locally for recycling, which means less money for the people working in this area. And there are also major environmental issues that people I talked to were concerned with.

The other part of my trip was about rugby, which isn’t a usual sport to link to Indonesia. However, since the Asian Games last year, it’s been given exposure, highlighting a community of people who have a love for the game. I went down to the newly built rubber astro-turf (Indonesia’s weather means playing on fields can be tricky), there I met a large group of people who have seen rugby help in creating a family-like environment, similar to one you would see at a local club in New Zealand.

I met Tito, who told me about the way rugby was progressing in Indonesia, the work they do with children in orphanages, and the way rugby benefits many young players from Indonesia and around the world. I spoke to a young player who was wearing Black Ferns shorts, and she told me it was her favourite team. Many of the clubs fostered an environment for kids who had never even played sport before.