Unfortunately the "do the right thing" message is struggling to gain a following in this sprawling archipelago. Children throw plastic wrappers on the ground where they have finished their sweets, shopkeepers push a mound of plastic generated by their store into the adjoining creek and families play in their yard where plastic wrappers lie on the ground as though they were leaves from a tree. Rarely is there any attempt to clean things up.
Once the little port and fishing village of Labuan Bajo, in the west of Flores, would have been a dreamy slice of tropical perfection. Cascading fresh water flowed down the steep hillside among rainforest giants to the crystal clear, shallow waters of the protected harbour where coral silently filtered their share of the nutrients and fish leapt from the water in huge schools. Now the creeks run black, their unimaginable odour that of sewerage and filth, their banks lined with compressed rubbish, awaiting the next wet season deluge. Much of the coral is gone, the fish have been eaten and the surface of the water is a sludge of plastic wrappers and other refuse. Paradise is lost.
Even in the Komodo region, a World Heritage Area, and the least populated place we have found in Indonesia, every beach is backed by a smattering of rubbish. Plastic bottles, chip packets, bits and pieces of all shape and colour lie scattered above the high tide line and blow about in the wind. Drifting through the crystal clear water where we are paddling are countless plastic bags and other scraps. Usually we'll know a town is around the next point by the rubbish in the water, drifting on the currents. Reefs catch the odd plastic trophy and store them for eternity. Mangrove forests filter the oceans and mounds of plastic build up behind them.
On several occasions the rubbish has got serious. As we set up camp on Moyo Island I collected a hypodermic needle from the beach around our camp and several small vials of some medical who-knows-what that had bobbed in on the tide. After our second day of scurrying about barefoot in our magical camp on Gili Mauan I brought my camp chair into the tent in the evening to discover the 2-inch needle of some years old hypodermic spiking into the base of the chair. Thankfully we have survived so far without any puncture wounds.
So how do we deal with our waste? This has been of concern to me since we began planning Archipaddlo. In QLD we minimised our rubbish by preparing and packaging all our meals in vacuum sealed bags. The sum total of a week's rubbish fitted into a sandwich bag. Wherever we could we took this to a town (Cooktown and TI) for disposal. In a few spots we burned our rubbish or buried it deep in a hole I was never certain of the best strategy so I mixed it up a bit.
In Indonesia we cannot avoid the excessive packaging. Every morsel of food we consume is wrapped in too much plastic. I suspect that if Indonesians worked out a way to individually package grains of rice then they would give it a go. Even if we collect every scrap and take them to the next town for disposal they would be thrown on the beach and burnt in small fires, smouldering until they have oozed their plasticky mess into the sand where the children play. So we carefully burn most of our rubbish, far away from children, and on hot fires to incinerate the remains. Then we bury the ashes. Typically this is done on a beach surrounded by hundreds of other plastic bits and pieces, but at least our own rubbish has been removed.
Is this the right thing to do? I just don't know. The problem of rubbish in this country is massive. The scars on the environment are permanent. Some plastic bottles are recycled here but this is not a solution. We try our hardest to minimise our own impact on this beautiful place. We only wish that the people who call this home would do the same.
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