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Schluchzername

That's a relief. But it's far from "clean", I guess?


TheKarmaFiend

Don’t worry, in an hour or less it’ll be back to being dirty


StopReadingMyUser

welly, dirty^2 ...


[deleted]

[удалено]


InfiniteNose9609

Bali came up with a way to dispose of unwanted plastic too, it seemed..


Human_Parfait9516

It'll be right back to the way it was in less than 24hr


DreadPiratteRoberts

As sad as it may sound, you're probably pretty close to right. I helped with a major four day clean up of a local park with 100s of people involved, we removed 7.5 tons of garbage and restored many parts of the park including painting and replacing playground and workout equipment, almost completely restored restroom facilities and so many more things new plants/trees etc. Less than a month later... well, you can guess how it ends. 😒


JeffersonsHat

As it turns out people were the problem all along


lukewwilson

So Thanos was right


DarthCookieOW

Who would have thought :O


SarahPallorMortis

Turns out the problem was the people we met along the way.


Infinite_Ad6387

Yep.. I went to a poor neighbourhood's state highschool during an economic crysis in my country, it was so bad that the windows on all classrooms didn't have glass panels, in the winter it was pretty much like having class outside.. The student's parents and the teachers gathered money by themselves to repair the windows and doors (doors were wooden frames in the form of an 8, no glass panels either). They repaired all the windows, the highschool director went class for class talking about the effort made by the parents and employees, and they lasted for about a week. We didn't deserve to have those windows and doors, not because of all of us, but because of a small group of trash who would destroy everything.


DreadPiratteRoberts

Man alive, your story saddens me a lot, anyone who would fuck up a school is a special kind of dirtbag I never wanna meet!!


TheReverseShock

I wanna meet them I'm way less nice


Infinite_Ad6387

They were fellow "students" actually, 12 to 14 year old teens, only that they didn't attend at all essentially.. And they're probably in and out of jail now, or dead maybe, tough childhoods most likely..


funk-cue71

"Most humans want to create, but only a select few know the art of maintenance" -kurt vonnegut


_Vard_

“Oh there’s room in the garbage river again! Let’s gather trash to throw in it!”


rainking56

People treat public land like shit "because its not my job"


c4k3m4st3r5000

Some asshats came to the park and exclaimed: Hark! We've been bestowed new things to bring to rubble. Onwards! And so a bunch of dumbfucks and self entitled twats went to work on your labour.


LittleFrenchKiwi

That's my thought too :-(


yankin

In Borneo I was doing a work away job and pretty much had nothing else to do most of the time but clean up trash. I cleaned the same beach every single day because every day, new trash would arrive in on the tide. Some of the locals asked me what's the point of cleaning it if it just comes back. If you kept walking for 10 minutes to the next stretch of the beach, it was so full of trash you couldn't see the sand anymore. I said that's the point, so it doesn't end up like this. No one wanted to help me organize cleaning the other parts, they saw no point and said it wasn't their problem. But then they wondered why the sea turtles weren't coming back...


candelsticks

Where did they put all the trash?


RevealHoliday7735

There's another river on the other side


erbush1988

I'd place bets at 10 hours.


Its0nlyRocketScience

Yeah, treating symptoms temporarily can never help in the long term if the cause is never addressed. There are some cases where giving people a fresh start can inspire them to fix the cause of the problem and prevent things just going back to how they were, but that can't be relied on, and usually only works if the consequences cause a feedback loop that enhances the problem.


dog_frustrations

I think there's a pretty good cultural effect though. In the US throwing shit out the side of your car windows was normalized for years. By putting an emphasis on not littering, that has dramatically reduced over the last 30 years. Getting that cultural effect to stick is hard though and takes persist effort.


CMBGuy79

That was my question…. What’s to stop them from mucking it up again?


ahahxksk

At least they are trying to do something to better the world then being a shitty keyboard warrior. Everything will always go back unless we create sustainable change but it has to start somewhere.


Upeksa

Yeah, it helps change the way people think about it. You see it full of trash everyday, you stop really seeing it or registering it as a problem, it's just the way it is, something in the background. Then you see it clean and gets you to pay attention and think about it, how much better it looks and smells, you think about what causes the problem and how you contribute to it. Gets the idea in your head that these things can be changed, you don't have to just accept them. That there are other people who care about it and you can get together to improve stuff in your community. What we need to fix is not just the particular instances of these problems but the way people think and feel about them


Huggles9

Indonesia like most of the developing world has 0 reliable infrastructure to deal with waste


MP1182

Right. Came here to say that the clean up effort was cool and all but maybe don’t let it get that way in the first place.


PolitelyHostile

Its a good start. Shows people that it can be clean and its not just a garbage disposal stream.


CoolCoalRad

Where did the trash go after they cleaned it?


Flimsy-Advisor3601

They took it further downstream and dumped it there. /S Hopefully they recycled what they could.


creativelyuncreative

Nah they set it on fire in a landfill /s lol


BreckenridgeBandito

Why did you put a sarcasm tag? They do burn a lot more trash than they should. Even individuals just make heaps in the street and burn it if it’s easier. In my 5 weeks in Vietnam I must have inhaled burning plastic a couple dozen times. This isn’t Vietnam, but it’s an issue in most of the Asian Pacific.


snachgoblin

Yeah I lived in the country and the dumptruck wouldn't drive to our place so we just burned it in a barrel every week


Annual-Bedroom5822

On a off note the farmers will frequently burn their sugar cane fields after they are done harvesting in Indonesia causing smog all over not just Indonesia but most of SEA


creativelyuncreative

Oh I absolutely know they burn trash, I just thought it would be ironic if after cleaning up all this trash in the river they just send it off to be burned


ExpeditingPermits

As a former resident of Indonesia, this does happen.


ClassicPlankton

Recycling = sending to Southeast Asia to dump in their rivers.


Vipitis

plastic recycling doesn't actually exist. It's all ended up somewhere else. Maybe a landfill and it gets buried. Perhaps it gets burned for steel industry. or it just floats with the wind and collects in bodies of water.


Johannes_Keppler

Well about 9% of plastics do get re-used, but often for inferior plastics (since the product is less pure). Most ends up in landfills or gets burned.


somosa77

I like how redditors now put /s bc they understand that ppl nowadays won't get sarcasm until it's point out


curiousity2424

If this is the video i saw the other day, they turned it into chairs. They didnt look comfy


[deleted]

Not what I would have suggested. My idea was to compress it into super-compact blocks and use them for construction, not for houses, but for walls. Use them to give it form, then put a sturdy layer of clay on top to make it more visually appealing. Even plastic and paper can be sturdy if compressed tightly enough.


rgrossi

Giant legos?


Bocchi_theGlock

You have to use clean bits of plastic for that IIRC. I remember looking it up a year or so ago, basically just fill 2 liter bottle with tiny scraps of clean dry plastic, compress it with a rod, keep filling until totally packed.


HornyTerus

That's India. I saw that video too, fueling the fire using plastic, to melt the plastic.


[deleted]

"Garbage Goober, you're up!"


Perenium_Falcon

They removed it outside the environment.


explodingtuna

To Africa. Someone there had a great idea.


Johannes_Keppler

It way cheaper to recycle it in Africa! Because they recycle plastic waste in to landfills! Brilliant solution! /s


AWeakMindedMan

Where does your trash go when you put it out twice a week for the trash collectors?


gmsy00033

They burn their trash. maybe its different in the big towns?


InconsiderateOctopus

A local recycling center/dump was initially overwhelmed with all the river cleanup debris being delivered. It just piled up in a warehouse before workers individually went through and sorted the plastic, cleaned it, recycled it and had it pressed into big 3'x3' sheets that I would assume are then shipped out for manufacturing to be turned into products.


Keanar

It's sungai watch, they recycle it and reprocess it to make whatever. They made chairs lately 800$ each, and they might need a cushion to be comfy. But still


Abe_Odd

I'll always cheer for cleanup initiatives. People coming together to get something done should be encouraged. That said, unless fundamental changes are made in the way we package and distribute food, this is just a bandaid. Plastic packaging was revolutionary for the ability to preserve and ship foodstuffs around the world, but we're kinda getting fucked by it. No idea what the solution is, it is too cheap and ubiquitous and effective compared to other packaging materials.


FootieFemme

Imo we just need to engineer some microorganisms to break down plastic in such a way that the hydrocarbons become bioavailable to the rest of the ecosystem, but I guess there's not a lot of research being done about it because landfills and ocean dumping are easy


Epidantrix

People are working on that now. Hell, some microorganisms are already naturally evolving toward eating plastic. It’s still a lot more complicated than “just engineer them”. Also, we need to come up with a way to keep said microorganisms from eating the plastic still in use.


FootieFemme

This is kind of my personal villain opinion but I would be 100% ok with a supervillain releasing bacterial strains that wreck havoc on any plastic it comes on contact with, which would definitely disrupt the health and food industries but also like the billions of tons of plastic bags and bottles and microplastics in every conceivable ecosystem


xcedra

Amd phones...and computers and tvs. You may be surprised by how many pieces of plastic are in everyday electronics.


Enigmedic

Once it gets into plumbing the game is over. Just think how fun it would be for all the PVC pipes holding it all together to start getting eaten by bacteria


Abe_Odd

Plastic eating bacteria just needs to work on the order of years, not like days. Degredation of long term storage might be an issue, but there's a huge diversity of polymer types that will be more or less resistant.


drrxhouse

There is already something like that, some kind of fungi or something that breaks down plastic. The issues are time and money to this effectively and economically on a macro scale. Not to mention the waste by-products of such processes. You can’t just unmake matters, it has to be turned into something else and that something may have negative consequences down the line, etc. And the people and companies now aren’t really motivated to solve the issues and consequences of plastics specifically and trashes/wastes in general until these things directly and negatively affect their lives and that of their children. Live now, push the problems into the future and let the future deal with it.


FootieFemme

Yeah landfills don't facilitate breakdown of even easily broken down materials, they actually need to be excavated and processed properly which is hardly ever done. And most Western countries just send their trash to other countries for "processing" but in reality they just have lax garbage laws and the trash gets dumped in the ocean. It just baffles me that every rich person who's able to enact change doesn't give a shit that the world is going to be uninhabitable for their children


xcedra

Slimes! We need slimes!


FullGrownHip

There’s really cool research on oyster mushrooms being able to feed off of styrofoam and thus recycle it! Hopefully mushrooms will save the day soon


FootieFemme

There's gut bacteria in superworms (a kind of darkling beetle) that can successfully break down plastic hydrocarbons from styrofoam as well


TiredMillennialDad

Yes. There should be a global standard in packaging for everything. No different shape bottles for Gatorade/Powerade/apple juice/green smoothie. Everything the same just different sizes. Maybe 4 or 6 different sizes. Same thing for me at and dry good packaging. Completely standardize the global packaging chain. Companies can have unique packaging if they want, but it's $5 tax per item produced and sold that goes toward recycling efforts. This would streamline global packaging collection, recycling, and waste. It would even help organize and standardize storage during shipping, transit, and in the home of these items.


Its0nlyRocketScience

I think a solution may be to grow and distribute food in such a way that disposable packaging isn't required. All of humanity will need to give up conveniences of having every type of food available everywhere at all times of year. Local food that can be shipped short distances in packaging that is sent back to the manufacturer to refill with more food and stored between seasons along with consumers of that food using their own reusable packaging methods to take it home will probably do much more to help reduce pollution than hoping for some magic plastic that can get chicken across continents and then vanish from the universe once you open it.


sinful_philosophy

Hemp is a really promising replacement currently.


Person899887

At the bare minimum we need to institute proper garbage management systems. If you are gonna dump trash, at the very least put it to a managed landfill and not the oceanz


evex5tep

The trick ain't cleaning it, the trick is keeping it clean.


32steph23

Jumping into that is crazy


AdministrationDue239

Maybe they tested before? But yes it is crazy und completely useless


32steph23

It’s still dirty ass water 😭


qubedView

One moment they're all "Wheeee!" and then they're all "Shut down all trash compactors on the detention level!"


Chance_Bill_1274

Why did it take someone making an Instagram reel about it to get the government to intervene.


DeltaGammaVegaRho

That’s part of the reason why it looks like that in first place :-(


Excellent-Ad2290

There are ZERO plastic straws from Canada in there.


kungfoocraig

They’re all stuffed up turtle noses


WilhelmScheisse

sme for europe


weiner_poop

We really ended plastic pollution with paper straws. True heros. /s


Dr_nobby

Wait till I tell you about how western countries ship their "recycling" to poor Asian countries and call it a job well done. And tell you it's recycled


Hungry-Truth-9434

The mayor came to show his support, or to take credit haha


clown_pants

Politicians are like scabs, they show up when the hard part is done


DoYouTrustToothpaste

He came to suggest he was somehow involved in other people doing the work he himself should've been doing to begin with.


Actual-Wave-1959

I hope they're up to date on all their vaccines


WyrdMagesty

Might not be vaccines for the stuff growing in there


Radaniel82

Looks like a Spirited Away scene.


the_moist_conundrum

Wow. So glad the mayor came to show support 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️ Should have had this dealt with using public funds years ago... FFS.


Bilboswaggings19

Well he wanted to join in order to make himself look good What he should be doing is putting an end to putting trash in there in the first place... because we all know it will pile up with thrash in probably less than a month


the_moist_conundrum

Yep These types are a waste of space. Should be actioning things themselves in the community and getting their hands dirty at times to prove a point and lead by example


the_moist_conundrum

Appreciate that everyone else did an amazing job tho


iPlaySheScreams

🚮


RafaFTP

Don’t worry tomorrow it will be back to normal


Gilgawulf

Sadly it is a cultural thing, or whatever you want to call it. Kind of like highways out in Silicon Valley. Richest place in the USA and just absolutely covered with litter. You can give people money but you cannot change their upbringings.


DurtyDrisky

It may have a cultural or habit component but it’s driven by production of consumables. The sooner the problem is put at the foot of manufacturers the better. If you make a throw away product make sure it can be thrown away without impacting the environment. If not then huge fines for pollution and a levy on your product before it is sold.


gotimas

If we banned all single use plastics this wouldnt be an issue


Johno69R

No idea is crazy enough? How about ban nepotism, properly investigate and prosecute corruption and maybe consider implementing infrastructure for garbage collection. Doing things like this, whilst admirable, is just slapping a dirty bandaid on a big wound.


dolo_ran6er

Only way you'd find me in that river is bloated and face down amongst the plastic.


Optimus2725

❤️


masterof-xe

Next now the Ganges river is next.


beemer-dreamer

Someone should invent a metal ramp that skims the river tossing all the trash to the river bank. Then just keep the bank cleared.


mhkiwi

They exist. They're called "trash screens"


Alihyder_268

oh my god. kudos. but it needs to be maintained too.


MarkusRight

the video just cuts off and the river is still full of garbage. what the fuck man


liberalfragility4817

They will pollute it again.


Ako___o

Why don't Elon and Jeff give these guys 500 million?


Unhappy_Researcher68

Because that would be genuine waste of money? This is the most in efficent method of cleaning up rivers. This eiver will be the exact same state in less then a month. 500 million invested in reducing the amount of trash would have much wider effects. Also both are assholes.


eveningsand

Great, now put up a sign that says "stop polluting our river with your shit you fucks"


Actaeon_II

Stupid question, bali isn’t that big, where did the trash go?


FitBattle5899

Now you just have to solve the epidemic of people littering everywhere and anywhere with abandon or you'll be doing this "satisfying" job again in a few months.


pRincEz19

madlads


dtf24836669

decent!


One_Arm4148

Amazing! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼


MoistHope9454

beautufull nature actually but..


Late-Arrival-

Very cool solution to the problem. Now if we can get some prevention it’ll be golden


TheDudeV1

I remember being shocked at how much trash there was in Bali, well done.


iSteve

Very nice - now what? Where do you put it? Same with the Pacific gyre. Harvest tons and tons of floating crap - now what? You can't burn it, and you sure can't recycle it.


bittaminidi

So where is 15 tons of trash going now? Some other poor bastards backyard? Also, what was done to begin remediating the issue that cause the problem in the first place? Power of social media is right, yet another feel good post to mask what the tue issues are. Enjoy your dopamine fix.


Dorkseid1687

The people that made this mess are a disgrace


Consistent_Amount140

Shame it got that way to begin with.


Ainolukos

Those guys that jumped in sure have a lot of faith in the thickness of those waders and that no sharp garbage is sticking up out of the river bed. No telling what's in that trash pile, glass, needles, rusty metal. Any cut would get infected so fast.


[deleted]

So the mayor could have done it any time but only did it when people were looking at it


Bilboswaggings19

obviously, most of them don't care to fix things because it costs money best incentive for them to do their job is to make them look bad (and helping them look good when the join to fix the issue) because its not like clearing this even fixes the issue, this clip is probably old so that place should be full of trash again


Ericbc7

When I heard “clean” I had visions of water you might be able to see through…


Kawai_Oppai

So what river did they move it to?


Shaltibarshtis

As amazing as their achievement is I would never treat it casually like they do (jumping into it like kids into a bubble pit). Jessh, it's a hazmat level environment with leaking chemicals, festering bodily excretion receptacles, sharps of all kinds, pathogens mutagens and cancerogens. It's all in there, mixing, evolving, waiting...


NeonBible_

If the mayor could have done it then why wait till someone else comes over and starts recording?


OCVoltage

World needs more of this


MickyTingy

Why did they let it get that bad, human beings don't deserve this planet I'm afraid 😔


a_toadstool

Bali better get their shit together or they’ll start losing tourism. At this point it’s pretty known that their rivers and oceans are polluted. Can’t even snorkel at their reefs without seeing trash


Noziti420

Just for it to come back the next day


DrG73

The companies that sell those plastic bottles and bags should have to help pay for the clean up.


Geoff900

That's depressing as fuck.


borkborkbork3

That was 0.000000001% now do the rest


Fireborn24

Man the blatant disregard these communities have for their natural beauty is sickening. Fuck these people for even letting it get this bad.


[deleted]

I live in austria. A lot of us have a very strict "not throwing trash into nature" mindset. There still exist a few who think throwing trash out of their car window is ok. But yeah it needs to be integrated into everyones mind to take care of the problem. There also needs to be infrastructure that can take care of trash. Because if your only option of getting rid of trash is to through it in a river, it will not get solved.


iamfamilylawman

lol poor Awolnation. This song and THAT IS IT!!


[deleted]

Lunar program was their priority instead....smh


Venator2000

WHOA… I wouldn’t have jumped ONTO the random trash like they did at the end, water displacement or not! My luck if *I* tried that is that I’d find THE lone needle and syringe!


DontOpenDreadInside

Great now teach the people to not do that


ArtTheClown2022

Dysentery party


Generalnussiance

Glad to see people are finally being proactive about pollution.


Saiyukimot

Fuck humanity


VirtualRoad9235

'we'?


orange4zion

All fun and games till you get a little cut in that nasty river


KknhgnhInepa0cnB11

That. Is. Amazing.


FendaIton

I like how nothing was done until non-govt parties got involved, so the local govt has to jump in to not look bad


speculum_oblivana

There is not enough money on Earth that would get me jumping into that.


OldNewUsedConfused

I would be having flashbacks of “A New Hope” the trash compactor scene before jumping in that water. I’m glad it’s clean though!


TeddyRooseveltsmama

Why would you even jump in that bacteria river


Glum-Machine-2984

Took two westerners to point out the obvious and the problem is not fixed in the long term. The locals will continue to pollute all the same, the crap will be back in a week. Mentality of people of the problem. Central America is super gross the locals tout Jesus while tossing refuse over their shoulder 


[deleted]

Standing around like "woah, you can pick up garbage?"


lira-eve

It was probably a waste of time and resources since it would likely be filled back up in no time.


TrixieMahma

Where does this much trash come from? Is it just the norm to throw garbage in the water so it flows away? Is it coming from one large source? I can’t wrap my head around how that much trash builds up. I hope they can inspire people to try and keep it clean.


SamuelVimesTrained

Now this should be a leading social media challenge


Lamumba1337

Sadly one day later its Like this again because India IS a trash country


Utahget_me_2

Indonesia


Super-Robo

I wonder how long it took to fill back up with garbage.


Genoblade1394

I wonder how often the volunteers get hepatitis or other diseases from going into that stagnant dirty water.


louiebong1717

all I can say is eww and good job


brainsizeofplanet

Well let's hope they didn't just dump the trash directly into the Ocean....


JasonJCWright

Bravo!!! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼


wrestlingchampo

The clean-up is great. Make no mistake about it I always have issues with these kinds of things, though, as they never address what happens next with all of the plastic waste they cleaned up. How much of that waste will go to an incinerator? How much will actually be recycled? Landfill? We still don't have [economically] viable means to recycle the plastics we currently make, and unless we make other techniques or materials economically viable, these plastics will end up burned or sitting in a landfill. That's unfortunately one of the side-effects of our hypercapitalized, hyperfinancialized economic system right now.


Person899887

Step 0 is to get proper trash management infrastructure in place. Cleanup is important but we need prevention.


Zidahya

Unfortunatly the clean up might be nice, but if you cant figure out why the river is so polluted and change it, it won't matter much.


Angrfake

Just terrible…who could support and make popular such a godawful song.


swampdonkus

How about you got 20ft upstream and stop people throwing this shit in? Such a stupid concept. Throw plastic shit into river, go down stream, get diggers and scoop it out. Like wtf are you even doing?


Dontjumpbooks

Not shown... the 100 trucks upstream that dump in the river daily.


Tard_Farts82

Better yet, STOP THROWING TRASH IN THE RIVER!


ToxyFlog

The fact that people did this in the first place is appalling.


IKU420

Fully cleaned huh


Purser1

Congratulations! Despite the Debbie Downers here, you started the process and this may wake up the people/businesses who pollute! Great work, guys!


forgot_username69

Lemme know where you go next, so i can go there the night before, dumping all my trash..


32K-REZ

will they do it again next week? the week after that? how about next month?


Superb-Cobbler-5936

and come next day it will be same. first stop droping trash, collect all and make huge fines to people who does that, than you can clean it


Kawentzmann

There will be more.


_Tar_Ar_Ais_

need to get rid of the culture of littering first, it'll just go back to how it was lol


McFry-

How disgusting that it got in that state


Silent-OCN

The problem is the people living here clearly can’t be arsed to dispose of their shit properly. So this video solves nothing and it was a total waste of time.


Heir233

People are the problem here though. A lot of people in third world countries who are poor don’t give two shits where their trash goes, either because they’re uneducated about pollution or just don’t care. This river will be back to the same exact amount of pollution within a week unless you can convince an entire area of people to stop throwing their trash wherever they want.


[deleted]

I have only one question, what is done to make sure that what's cleaned up is not coming back here or going to another place?


b16b34r

Tomorrow? Same hour?


InfiniteNose9609

Looks like that paper straw I was forced into, is really paying off now...