11.12.2020
This Man Is Installing 100 Trash Barriers In Bali’s Rivers To Stop Plastic Pollution
Called Sungai Watch – from the Indonesian for river – it’s an online platform that uses GIS (Geographic Information System) mapping and artificial intelligence (AI) to see details in rivers of up to 10 centimeters. Around 90% of the marine plastic transported by rivers to the ocean originates from just 10 waterways. Indonesia is second only to China as the world’s largest contributor of this kind of waste to the ocean plastic problem – with four of its rivers among the top 20 polluters globally. Bali’s pollution problem is so bad the government declared a “garbage emergency” in 2018. Tourists arriving on the beach at Sanur, Denpasar, in April that year had to pick their way through the debris. Make a Change has partnered with German tech start-up Plastic Fischer to test out floating trash booms for rivers and smaller trash blocks for streams on Bali’s waterways. Each day, the waste that’s captured is collected and taken to a mobile sorting station, where it’s washed and weighed before being sent off for recycling. Trash booms are built using cheap, local materials – stainless steel and galvanized steel wire mesh, suspended from PVC pipes. As Gary prepares to launch Sungai Watch globally in Davos, he says, “If we can stop plastic pollution before it reaches our ocean, we’ll be able to drastically reduce this problem before it becomes uncontrollable.”
Credit: WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
Credit: WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
Poverty deprives people of adequate education, health care and of life's most basic necessities- safe living conditions (including clean air and clean drinking water) and an adequate food supply. The developed (industrialized) countries today account for roughly 20 percent of the world's population but control about 80 percent of the world's wealth.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
