Belitung is a beautiful resort island just east of Sumatera. We visited Belitung for a week this past January. It was literally a breath of fresh air after living in our crowded, dense, urban environs for several months. I craned towards the sky and realized that I had forgotten what blue, unpolluted sky looks like. Then I finished deboarding the plane.
Verdant, wild green forest and jungle lined empty roads. The jungle was interspersed with palm plantations, veritable mono-culture forests in uniform rows. Deforested fields lay fallow for planting. Unfenced houses lined the more inhabited spaces on the way to the hotel. The main road we traveled was amazingly empty save the occasional moped. It was wonderful to not breath in sooty hydrocarbons from exhaust fumes. It also felt eerie to be the only ones on the road for 45 minutes.
We asked our driver whether it was always so quiet. He replied that all the tourists had come for Christmas and left yesterday. We essentially had an empty resort to ourselves. The catch was that rideshare drivers will no longer go out as far as our hotel. We were therefore going to be stranded on a beautiful beach and its adjacent hotel for four days. What does one do at an empty beach resort? He chuckled and answered: (a) touring other islands, (b) snorkeling and fishing, (c) eating, (d) eating the fish we catch (for a cooking fee).
The primary activity on offer is actually an “island-hopping tour”. A local fisherman will take you to the little islands dotting Belitung’s shores. Their waters are pristine and clear blue. Swimmers can explore and snorkel in the nearby reefs. Even blind, I appreciated swimming among schools of brightly colored tropical reef fish and hand-feeding them. The coral sand beaches were likewise pristine save the occasional large, broken conch / clam / murex shell. Rocky shoals were water-worn to a smooth finish. It was a little bit of paradise for a resident of the concrete jungle.
The Second Island
The beach of the second island was markedly different from the previous one. Its coral sands were overrun with litter. Glass bottles and not a few aluminum cans lay where they had been deposited by the tide. Countless plastic grocery bags formed colorful swathes of dehydrating faux-jellyfish. Miniature flecks of hard plastic colored the white sands. Deposits of plastic bottles and empty chip bags lay amongst the tree roots creeping in from the jungle. Tangles of trawling net hung from rocks and tree branches. Those had been left by fisherman who considered it more expedient to cut rather than rescue their nets.
We passed this beachside wastleland and walked into the forest. The smell of loam and bittersweet decay wafted in the air. This was pure and fertile jungle. As we approached the hill’s crest, we came upon a dilapidated three-walled structure big enough for a two-person bedroom. Its bamboo railings were rotten. The thatch was black with mold. Something, perhaps a rotting coconut, had fallen and punched a hole in the thatch roof. A bamboo ladder behind the structure had the bottom half of its steps broken and listing on one side.
Despite the decay, the front was a wide open-air affair that faced a beautiful shoreline and clear horizon. From the crest of the hill we could see pristine sands below, save the occasional broken shell. The waters were clear. A single chip bag floated in the tide, possibly lost by a careless and negligent tourist. Or perhaps carried in by an errant current.
Our captain explained that Sheraton hotels had heavily invested in this particular island. They bought several plots of land to build open-air cabins with a view. Sheraton stopped construction once the pandemic hit. The buildings had been allowed to decay since then because Sheraton has not deemed it worthwhile to restore the land to its natural state.
He then also explained the differences in beaches. This island runs north-south. It thus intercepts two different east-west currents, one on each side. The eastern side of the island receives trash from all over Asia. The western side receives none. The tour guides occasionally come and do a cleanup of all the smaller islands. They gave up on this one because the sheer amount of incoming trash was overwhelming.
My curiosity was piqued. I resolved to examine the garbage patch more closely as we traversed it back to our boat. This little patch of no-man’s land was indeed an Asian repository of trash. I found Korean water bottles, Vietnamese beer cans, Thai and Japanese snack products, and a good many plastic bags with Tagalog printed on them. The nets were bona fide Indonesian manufacture. Soggy Marlboro cigarette butts lay among the brown Tsing-Tao beer bottles. I am positive that some of these were from negligent or disrespectful tourists rather than the ocean current. On the other hand, the current definitely brought the lion’s share.
The Last of Us
The repository was fascinating precisely because it was an assembly of products from all over Asia. I stood in The Asian Museum of Garbage. Someone who knew nothing of a wider world could come and deduce that many lands existed outside Belitung’s boundaries provided they examined closely enough. On the other hand, one man’s trash is not another man’s treasure.
Asia’s trash directly negatively affects the island’s health and economic welfare. Belitung’s primary source of income is its reef-tourism industry and its fisheries. Its geography deters strong regional clean-up efforts. The fishermen collect trash on their own initiative when able. Yet they cannot earn money to support their families collecting trash. The international trash repository is consequently there to stay and it only grows.
Traversing the second island felt a bit surreal. It was a microsmic representation of humanity’s choices writ large. Humanity rests at the crest of the hill as we attempt to impose ourselves on the created order. Our present, like the structure, is in disrepair. We can pursue harmonious symbiosis for a pristine world or eventually succumb to a post-human future. Nothing is irreversible yet if we can prioritize saving the planet over exploiting it.
Unfortunately, I confess to being a pessimist (nay, a realist!) about environmental issues. Money is a powerful incentive. Change is a powerful disincentive. If the repository continues to wash ashore as it has, eventually Belitung’s reefs will die, its waters will cloud, and the fishermen will lose their livelihoods. May our lasting legacy be better than far-flung glass bottles, decaying plastic, and a smattering of cigarette butts.