Saturday, August 10, 2013

Surfing Waves of Trash in Indonesia



The Huffington Post  |  By Posted:

Photographer Captures Waves of Trash in Indonesia

Waves for days. Trash for eternity. That’s what photographer Zak Noyle discovered on a recent trip to Java, Indonesia. The waves of Java, always known for being pristine and barreling, were now rolling swells of disgusting trash and debris.
Noyle was shooting Indonesian surfer Dede Surinaya in a remote bay when he and Surinaya discovered the water to be covered in garbage, according to GrindTV. The bay was miles from any town, yet strong currents had carried the trash of the world’s most populated island, Java, to its once pure waters.
“It was crazy. I kept seeing noodle packets floating next to me,” Noyle told GrindTV. “It was very disgusting to be in there; I kept thinking I would see a dead body of some sort for sure.”
zaknoyle
In addition to the sea of plastic, large objects like tree trunks were being tossed around in the waves.
Indonesia, a country comprised of more than 17,000 islands, suffers from a terrible trash problem that is polluting its waters. Some of the population centers have little to no trash collection infrastructure, leading locals to dispose of their waste in the street or in river beds, after which it inevitably is washed out to sea.
Often, the only other disposal option Indonesians have is burning their trash. Incinerating waste creates equally harmful (albeit less visible) damage to the environment. According to the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, the byproducts of burned waste “produce a variety of toxic discharges to the air, water and ground that are significant sources of a range of powerful pollutants. Many of these toxins enter the food supply.”
indonesia
Residents of large population centers are often the ones improperly disposing of their trash, which storms and currents carry to beaches and islands most locals have never even seen. "There is little cultural awareness when it comes to trash,” according to Time magazine.
But Anna Cummins, co-founder of 5 Gyres, a non-profit that sails the world researching plastic pollution, told The Huffington Post that lack of awareness is not always to blame. “We met many people who would like to do the right thing, but simply don't have access to basic waste removal/disposal. The stench of burning plastic is ever present. The juxtaposition of incredible natural beauty with the blight pollution in Bali was heartbreaking.”
indonesiatrash
No matter who is to blame, the effects are felt by those who live in or visit Indonesia. Mark Lukach, a writer for the surf website The Inertia, described his first time visiting the island of Lombok.
“My boyhood fantasy felt disappointingly ruined," he wrote. "I couldn’t believe it. Trash in the lineup. And not any lineup. A lineup right out of my imagination – the perfect lineup … spoiled by trash.”
Also on HuffPost:
  • Sandy Cay

    This astronaut photograph taken on Nov. 27, 2010, provides a view of tidal flats and channels near Sandy Cay, on the western side of Long Island, and along the eastern margin of the Great Bahama Bank, on the islands of Bahamas. The continuously exposed parts of the island are brown, a result of soil formation and vegetation growth. To the north of Sandy Cay, an off-white tidal flat composed of carbonate sediments is visible; light blue-green regions indicate shallow water on the tidal flat.
  • Lake Nasser

    Egypt's Lake Nasser was photographed in January 2005 from the International Space Station.
  • Sahara Desert

    Tassili n'Ajjer National Park, part of the Sahara Desert, has a bone-dry climate with scant rainfall, yet it doesn't blend in with Saharan dunes. Instead, the rocky plateau rises above the surrounding sand seas. This image from 2000 was made from multiple observations by the Landsat 7 satellite, using a combination of infrared, near-infrared and visible light to better distinguish among the park's various rock types.
  • Hydrogen Sulfide and Dust Plumes on Namibia's Coast

    Cloudless skies allowed a clear view of dust and hydrogen sulfide plumes along the coast of Namibia in early August 2010. Multiple dust plumes blow off the coast toward the ocean, most or all of them probably arising from stream beds. Unlike the reddish-tan sands comprising the dunes directly south of the Kuiseb River, the stream-channel sediments are lighter in color. Wind frequently pushes dust plumes seaward along the Namibian coast.
  • Egypt

    The Nile River and its delta look like a brilliant, long-stemmed flower in this astronaut photograph of the southeastern Mediterranean Sea, as seen from the International Space Station on Oct. 28, 2010. The Cairo metropolitan area forms a particularly bright base of the flower.
  • Islands of Four Mountains

    The snow-capped volcanoes composing the Islands of the Four Mountains in Alaska's Aleutian Island chain look suspiciously like alien worlds in this August 2010 image from the ASTER camera aboard NASA's orbiting Terra satellite.
  • Aurora Australis

    This NASA image shows the aurora australis observed from the International Space Station on May 29, 2010. This aurora image was taken during a geomagnetic storm that was most likely caused by a coronal mass ejection from the sun on May 24.
  • Sarychev Volcano

    Astronauts at the International Space Station captured this striking view of the Sarychev volcano on Russia's Kuril Islands in an early stage of eruption on June 12, 2009. Sarychev Peak is one of the most active volcanoes in the Kuril Islands chain.
  • Arctic Eclipse

    NASA's Terra satellite was rounding the top of the globe -- making its way from the eastern tip of Siberia and across the Arctic Ocean toward northwest Russia -- when it captured this unique view of a total solar eclipse on Aug. 1, 2008. In the area shown in the image, the sun was obscured for about two minutes. As Earth rotated, the shadow moved southeast across the surface. At the same time, the satellite crossed the Arctic with its path nearly perpendicular to the eclipse.
  • Fargo

    The Advanced Land Imager on NASA's Earth Observing-1 satellite shows a snowy blanket over Fargo, N.D., on Dec. 12.
  • Mount Everest

    Astronauts captured this image highlighting the northern entry to Mount Everest from Tibet on Jan. 6. Climbers travel along the East Rongbuk Glacier, shown on the lower left, to camp at the base of Changtse mountain.
  • Island Beauty

    The south end of Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas shimmers in turquoise waters in this 2002 photo from the International Space Station.
  • Massive Sandstorm

    A massive sandstorm sweeps over Qatar as it races south toward southeastern Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates on Feb. 15, 2004. A major upper-level, low-pressure system over southwestern Asia led to a series of storms sweeping through the area. The crew of the International Space Station captured this image with a digital camera using a 50-millimeter lens.
  • Lake Naivasha, Kenya

    Flowers grow year round in sun-drenched Kenya, and nowhere are they more plentiful than Lake Naivasha, shown here. In this view from space, bright white squares mix with fields of green, tan and purple along the shores of the lake. Sunlight glints off the long rows of glass greenhouses, turning them silvery blue and white. Fallow fields are tan and pink, while growing plants turn the ground bright green. Roses, lilies and carnations are the most common flowers grown in the greenhouses and fields scattered around the lake.
  • Cumulonimbus Cloud Over Africa

    High above the African continent, tall, dense cumulonimbus clouds, meaning "cloud heap" in Latin, are the result of atmospheric instability. The clouds can form alone, in clusters or along a cold front in a squall line. The high energy of these storms is associated with heavy precipitation, lightning, high wind speeds and tornadoes.
  • NASA Released New Images of Earth at Night

    The new images were taken over 22 days by a satellite imaging system and provide the most detailed look yet at the world's night lights.
    end quote from:
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/10/trash-waves-indonesia_n_3736913.html

No comments: