The yearly campaign kicked into action after rubbish was getting trapped in the fishing nets of locals (AFP Photo/PERDIANSYAH) |
Hundreds of people sifted through a vast wasteland of rubbish strewn across a beach in Indonesia on Thursday, underscoring the Southeast Asian archipelago's mammoth marine waste problem
Some 200
students, military personnel and locals scoured a beach on the southern tip of
Sumatra island, picking up rubbish as they waded through heaps of plastic,
discarded flip flops and other debris.
In just
over three hours, the group collected an eye-watering 30 tonnes of rubbish from
the coast in Lampung province.
The yearly
campaign first kicked into action in 2010 after huge amounts of rubbish were
getting trapped in the fishing nets of locals who made their living off the
sea.
Most of the
detritus had flowed in from the provincial capital.
Other
rubbish clearing campaigns have popped up across Indonesia, the world's second
biggest contributor to marine debris after China.
In holiday
hotspot Bali, the problem has become so bad that officials declared a
"garbage emergency" two years ago after a stretch of coast was
swamped with rubbish.
Last year,
a sperm whale was found dead in a marine park off Sulawesi island with 115
plastic cups and 25 plastic bags in its stomach.
The
archipelago of some 17,000 islands has pledged to reduce marine plastic waste
by 70 percent by 2025.
VIDEO: Students, military personnel and locals scoured a beach in Indonesia, picking up rubbish as they waded through heaps of plastic, discarded flip flops and other debris. In just over three hours, the group collected 30 tonnes of rubbishhttps://t.co/EFVTAx69EN pic.twitter.com/6zOffnIrjn— AFP news agency (@AFP) February 21, 2019