IDEP joins Boomerang Alliance for “Clean Islands, Healthy Seas”!

IDEP Foundation has joined with Boomerang Alliance – a network of environmental action organisations behind Australia’s successful “Cash for Containers” recycling campaign - to help tackle the global marine plastic pollution crisis – aiming for “Clean Islands, Healthy Seas” across Indonesia and beyond.

As a friend of Australia - and first Boomerang Alliance international NGO ally - IDEP will share research, campaigns and raise awareness of the planet’s urgent marine plastics crisis – as a rapidly growing economy, Indonesia trashes over 3 million tonnes of plastic pollution every year – much of it ending up in the world’s oceans!

· Did you know?: Indonesia is world’s 2nd largest marine plastic polluter? And we share this trash with Australian beaches and islands? We need to feel “malu”!

Indonesia’s plastic trash takes beach holiday in Queensland

Boomerang Alliance ally - and coordinator of the Australian Marine Debris
Initiative, Tangaroa Blue – recently alerted IDEP Foundation to the issue of Indonesia’s plastic trash washing up on remote beaches and islands of the east coast state of Queensland – home of the Great Barrier Reef and other treasured marine ecosystems.

“We just completed our 5-day beach clean-up event in Mapoon, which is just north of Weipa in the Gulf of Carpentaria / Cape York,” reports Tangaroa Blue manager, Heidi Taylor.

Tangaroa Blue volunteers cleaned up 10km of beach at Mappon on remote Cape York in north Australia - finding a huge number of items manufactured in Indonesia.

As part of regular national beach and river clean-ups, Tangaroa Blue volunteers travelled northward to remote Cape York Peninsula - on the tip of eastern Australia, 3000km north of Brisbane - to work together with local Land and Sea rangers collecting marine debris from the beaches of Mapoon aboriginal community – population: less than 300.

“During this event we cleaned up 10km of beach and removed [1.8 tonnes of marine trash] a huge number of items that had barcodes indicating that they were manufactured in Indonesia. None of these products are sold in the region where they are found, most I haven’t seen sold in Australia at all”.

Tonnes of trash: A clean Mapoon beach after the clean-up event [August 2016] - Photo: Julie
Remp/Tangaroa Blue Foundation

Main plastic items found - with Indonesian barcodes:

· Plastic water bottles

· Plastic drink bottles

· Plastic personal care bottles, such as shampoo

· Plastic oil (car) bottles

· Plastic drink cups

· Plastic bleach bottles

Not sold in Australia: Found in tonnes of plastic trash on Mappoon beach was many brands of Indonesian product not available in Australia. Photo: Tangaroa Blue Foundation

Main brands of water bottles found - Indonesian:

· Aqua brand: - more than 900 empty bottles of this Indonesia-produced, bottled-water brand – found on remote Mapoon beach - out of a total 4400 plastic drink/water bottles collected

· Other bottle brands: VIT- Gresh – Flow - AJE- Jungle Juice- Floridina - Minute Maid – Cheers (drink/ water)

Aqua: More than 900 empty bottles of Indonesia-produced, Aqua bottled-water brand – found on remote Mapoon beach in northeast Australia - out of a total 4400 plastic drink/water bottles collected. Photo: Tangaroa Blue Foundation

*Mapoon indigenous community on the tip of Cape York - “saltwater people working together” - is now famous for marine trash projects - GhostNets art and woven products, created to raise awareness of this endless sea rubbish washing up on remote Queensland and Northern Territory beaches: piles of plastic junk, thousands of bottles and shoe thongs – also plastic ropes and trawler nets, drifting on currents from Indonesia’s fishing sites in Arafura Sea to the north, on to wild coastlines and islands, drowning sea turtles and other marine creatures tangled in lost fishing trash or mistake plastic for food.

· Did you know? : Giant ocean garbage dumps, named Gyres, have formed across the Asia-Pacific region? Indian Ocean Gyre is south of Indonesia, and east of Australia is the South Pacific Gyre - full of trash carried on sea currents from across Asia and other countries.

· We need to feel “malu” - and do something now to save our oceans!

Help launch “Clean Islands, Healthy Seas” - Indonesia

IDEP will launch a small island plastic waste management program to help tackle source-reduction of Indonesia’s marine pollution crisis. Based on inclusive-conservation methods, ‘Clean Islands, Healthy Seas’ incorporates environmental preservation with sustainable community development goals, and IDEP’s mission of “helping people to help themselves” by “understanding our interconnectedness with Nature”:

‘Clean Islands, Healthy Seas’ – is a sustainable, plastic waste-recycling, community-enterprise system – that cleans up land and sea, and helps generate income for community benefit – on Nusa Ceningan, a small developing tourist island, off Bali, in Nusa Penida Marine Protected Area (MPA) – inside the Coral Triangle of Indonesia.

Nusa Ceningan: Waste is trashed - no waste infrastructure on many Indonesian islands, trash from locals and tourism is burned, buried on beaches or thrown into the sea. Photo: IDEP Foundation

This win-win circular economy pilot model aims to be self-sustainable within 2 years – IDEP will plan to replicate this model in the future to other small developing islands which have no waste management infrastructure – in eastern Indonesia, close to the Throughflow Current that connects with Australia’s coastlines.

SPONSOR:

Help IDEP to launch “Clean Islands, Healthy Seas” plastic waste recycling program – together we can make this exciting pilot program a reality!

Contact IDEP for a CSR/ sponsor proposal: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Or

Make a Donation: http://www.idepfoundation.org/en/how-you-can-help/donate-today

Make a difference together – “help people to help themselves” - help clean up our seas!

Boomerang Alliance: http://boomerangalliance.org.au/

Tangaroa Blue: http://www.tangaroablue.org/

GhostNets: http://ghostnets.com.au/