Bali’s pristine beaches have turned into garbage dumps as the island struggles without tourists

22

View
comments

Bali’s iconic beaches have transformed into rubbish dumps with tonnes of filth piling higher than the deck chairs where Australian tourists once sunned themselves on holiday.

The once-popular Kuta and Jimbaran beaches are now deserted and strewn with washed-up bottles, bags and plastic, leaving them looking more like a tip than an idyllic tourist destination.

Between 30 and 60 tonnes of trash is being collected from Bali’s most popular beaches each day, with the problem at its worst from December to March, when seasonal winds and heavy rain wash rubbish onto the beach.

But locals believe the problem is worse than ever this year, creating another crisis for the island as workers  struggle due to the Covid-19 pandemic denying them the usual flood of tourists.

Normally, individual resorts pay an army of cleaners to work around the clock removing plastic rubbish from beaches. 

However, many of them have been released from employment due to the lack of tourists, with Covid seeing arrivals fall a staggering 95 per cent.

Shocking photos have emerged of local surfers and beachgoers sunbaking and walking along shorelines strewn with mountains of plastic cups, cans, bottles, discarded footwear and other debris.

The beaches are usually packed with hundreds of international tourists kept away by the coronavirus pandemic.

The trash continues to grow, despite the desperate efforts by local authorities to clear the mess on a daily basis. 

Wayan Puja, from Badung’s environment and sanitation agency, which covers the Kuta, Seminyak and Jimbaran beaches, says the influx of trash is seemingly never-ending.

‘We have been working really hard to clean up the beaches, however, the trash keeps coming,’ Wayan said.

‘Every day we deploy our personnel, trucks and loaders.’ 

In recent months, there have been days where locals have removed 30 tonnes of rubbish from beaches in Kuta, Legian and Seminyak before returning the following day to find the mounds of garbage had doubled to 60 tonnes, he said.

Wayan added while rubbish flooding onto Bali beaches was a regular phenomenon at this time of year, due to weather conditions, it was getting worse.

Dr Gede Hendrawan, the head of the Centre for Remote Sensing and Ocean Sciences at Bali’s Udayana University, said the biggest problem was Indonesia’s ineffective rubbish handling systems.

‘The biggest problem is actually the trash handling hasn’t been effective in Indonesia. Bali has just started to reorganise it, also Java has just started,’ he said.

Bali’s Governor, Wayan Koster, urged serious action to clean up the beaches – which are a huge tourist drawcard.

‘The Badung administration should have a trash handling system at Kuta Beach that is complete with adequate equipment and human resources so they can work quickly to clean up the trash washed onto the beach,’ he said.

‘Moreover, in the rainy season when there are tourists visiting, the trash handling systems should be working 24 hours a day. Don’t wait for tomorrow.’

Indonesia is among the worst contributors to plastic pollution, with 200,000 tonnes of plastic washing into the ocean, according to a study published by the journal Nature Communications in 2017.

Siblings Rizkika Arshanty and Rizkella Triara, from Jakarta said they were disappointed to visit Kuta Beach and find it inundated with rubbish.

Thousands of Australian tourists would normally be in Bali over the summer holiday period but the coronavirus pandemic has halted overseas travel. 

Indonesia has recorded 1,111,671 coronavirus cases and 30,770 deaths as of Thursday.

Indonesia closed its international borders in April, which crippled the Balinese economy – normally almost entirely dependent on foreign tourism.

Businesses reopened to Bali locals in July after a three month hiatus.

Kuta has transformed from a bustling tourist mecca into a deserted ghost town, forcing accommodation operators to rethink their survival strategy and slash prices.  

Indonesia is keeping its borders closed to all foreign arrivals until at least January 14 in a bid to halt the spread of the new strains of Covid-19 that have emerged in the UK, South Africa and the US which have spread to other countries, including Australia.

Entry to Indonesia is only open to foreign nationals already holding a valid stay permit who must return a negative coronavirus test before they fly and spend 14 days in hotel quarantine when they arrive in Indonesia.  

Bali Governor Wayan Koster remains optimistic about the revival of international tourism on the island, despite rising COVID-19 cases in the country.

‘We have agreed to keep on pushing various policies to return the trust of tourists, especially foreign tourists, to visit Bali. [This is] so that the tourism sector can revive,’ Koster told reporters last month. 

Pre-COVID, more than a million Australians travelled to Indonesia each year and made up more than a quarter of Bali tourists.

Around 1.23million Australians visited Bali in 2019 – a rise of 5.24 per cent on 2018 figures.

Around 20,000 Australians visited Bali at any one time before the pandemic before the number of foreign tourists arriving in Indonesia plunged 60 per cent in March as the outbreak spread worldwide. 

As a result, more than 73,000 people have been furloughed and another 2,500 workers have lost their jobs in Bali due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Foreign tourist arrivals in Indonesia slumped 89.22 percent year-on-year to 164,970 in August 2020.  

The Indonesian government predicts $14billion will be lost from tourism in 2020 and has introduced a $28billion in fiscal stimulus to fight the downturn. 

Kuta Beach is located in the regency of Badung, which normally earns between $19million and $38million from January to June. 

The regency had only earned $572,000 from January to June this year.