The Balinese Sludge Pit and Other Trashy Posts

The Balinese Sludge Pit

posted by SURFING Magazine / News / October 16, 2013

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As I walked down the steps that lead into the Uluwatu cave, my friend Brook turned and asked if I want to go to a place where most tourists don’t get to see. We hooked a sharp left off the path and less than a minute later, I was disgusted. Here, in the heart of beautiful Bali, was a bubbling swamp of black sludge. The smell of human shit made me gag. The low hum of mosquito nesting grounds made me worry. The dreamy blue tubes only a few meters below the black swamp made me realize what a surreal juxtaposition this was.

The septic pipes that are meant to treat restaurant cooking oil and toilet waste at Uluwatu are broken and the waste now flows directly into the swamp. During the rainy season, the swamp becomes a dirty waterfall that, just like the warnings on storm drains state, “Flows To The Ocean.”

I was in Bali to make a mini-documentary about the waste epidemic. It wasn’t a coincidence that we arrived at the scene I just described. After seeing the sludge pit, I interviewed the head of Project Clean Uluwatu. PCU is an organization that is working to install a liquid waste processor that would take the waste from the sludge pit and treat it properly. This is a $50,000 project and they are $20,000 shy of making it a reality. It is baffling that only $20,000 would make the difference between surfing in clean water as opposed to feces-filled scuzz at one of the most legendary waves in the world.

We don’t all need to roll up our sleeves and get messy in order for a change like this to occur. While that’s an earnest thought, it isn’t a necessity. All we really need to do is support the people who are in the trenches willing to do the work. Organizations like Project Clean Uluwatu are the architects working to fix a broken system. They are willing to do the dirty work for the rest of us. Only we need to give them the financial support to make it happen. If you’ve ever surfed Uluwatu, if you want to surf Uluwatu, if you like the ocean, if you wish something good would happen, then click here to donate, and this sludge pit could be gone by the end of the year. —Kyle Thiermann

Trash Pick Up By TSJ (www.surfersjournal.com)

Plastic in our seas, Texas-sized islands of refuse in steady rotation in the oceans' five gyres. The problem's become synonymous with the planet's unsolvable environmental decay.

But then "unsolvable" is a pretty strong word, especially for a 19-year-old. Enter Boyan Slat. Not exactly a surfer per say, Slat's a Dutch engineering student by trade, he's also the inventor of a device he calls the "Ocean Cleanup Array," an ocean-powered sifter that he claims can remove 7.25 million tons of plastic over a five-year span.

"The essence of The Ocean Cleanup Array is, instead of fighting it, to use the ocean to your advantage," reads a description on Slat's website. "The gyres are 5 areas in world's oceans where rotating currents create an accumulating mass of plastic, dubbed 'Garbage Patches'. Moving through the oceans to collect plastic would be costly, clumsy and polluting, so why not let the rotating currents transport the debris to you? With The Ocean Cleanup Array, an anchored network of floating booms and processing platforms will span the radius of such a gyre. These booms act as giant 'funnels', where a slight angle of the booms create a component of the surface current force in the direction of the platforms. The debris then enters the platforms, where it will be separated from plankton, filtered out of the water, and eventually stored in containers until collected for sales/recycling on land."

Ultimately money talks, and Slat predicts by gathering the debris for recycling the project could ultimately be revenue generating.

"According to current estimations – due to the plan’s unprecedented efficiency – recycling benefits would significantly outweigh the costs of executing the project," says Slat. "Although the quality of the plastic is somewhat lower than ordinary recycled plastic, it could for example be mixed with other plastics to produce high-quality products. PR through an Ocean Plastics brand can further increase the plastics’ value, and would create awareness with the consumer."

The Ocean Cleanup Array concept began as a school paper that Slat was working on. It's since won the Best Technical Design award from Delft University of Technology. In the last year Slat also founded The Ocean Cleanup Foundation to help move the project forward. (read more at http://www.surfersjournal.com/journal_entry/trash-pick)

Surfing For Change: Indonesia Trash Tubes

 Kyle Thiermann

Published on Sep 23, 2013

https://www.facebook.com/surfingforch...

Bali is a little island with a big problem - it's drowning in trash. In this short film, host & pro-surfer, Kyle Thiermann, shows the good, the bad, and the ugly of Indonesia and what we can do to restore it to the pristine, tropical paradise it once was.

Get more meaningful entertainment at:http://www.surfingforchange.com.

Good orgs to connect with:

http://www.projectcleanuluwatu.com
http://www.savethewaves.org
http://www.no-burn.org
http://www.travelersagainstplastic.org