One of the reasons tourists visit Indonesia is the spectacular nature. Many visitors complain about waste in Indonesian environment. Organising waste management in Indonesia is a huge challenge. Indonesia has more than 17.000 islands and approximately 54.600 Km coastline. You can imagine how difficult it is to set up the logistics for a waste system. Other factors contributing to the waste problems are lack of drinkable tap water. Drinking water is distributed in plastic bottles. Another factor is the widespread use of single-use packaging. This packaging was developed to enable Indonesians to purchase products at low price. Even though Indonesian economy is growing, a large part of the population still has low income. In September 2013, the average wage for an Indonesian farmer was USD $3.58 per day. This increased to an average of USD $3.74 per day in March 2014. (source)

Indonesian government and other stakeholders are collaborating on solving the waste problems. The National Action Plan on Marine Plastics Waste Management has been activated in 2017 and is expected to improve the situation within the coming years.

In 2020 we opened our waste collection center in Labuan Bajo – you can follow us on Instagram and follow more news and discussions at our Indonesian Waste Platform forum and contribute your expertise if you like to get involved. For info you can contact my friend and colleague Marta Muslin at indonesianwasteplatform@gmail.com  at Indonesian Waste Platform 

Some pictures of our waste collection activities from fishing communities on outlying islands and our sorting center in Labuan Bajo. 

The second best after reducing single use materials is to reuse and repurpose products which would otherwise end up littered, burned or landfilled. I our sorting center we give such materials a second life. For example glass bottles, we collect thousands from the Labuan Bajo hotel and restaurant sector. We crush the bottles to use as sand mixed with cement to make garden steps and we cut bottles to make drinking glasses. With these products we generate alternative income to cover costs of our operation. The bottle crusher was donated to us by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

What more can you do ?

• Come and see what we do and visit our waste collection center in Labuan Bajo.
• You can bring your own refillable bottle – in many locations you can find filling stations. In Indonesia these locations are listed on this website On Flores people are starting to list their refill points too.
• You can refuse plastic bags in shops and bring your own reusable shopping bag
• Refuse a plastic straw, bring your own reusable straw
• Bring your own reusable cutlery
• Bring your own shopping bag
• When you visit Komodo National Park on a live-a-board just bring karung (waste bags) and go and clean up with the crew. Best to separate the waste, one group collecting plastic bottles and another group picking up other trash.

Updated July 2023