Most people here don't seem to notice or care about trash and think it's fine to just drop stuff anywhere. I don't want to clean up their waste. I want those who make the mess to stop or be stopped. Texas was full of litter when I was a kid, especially the highways. Now it's quite clean and neat. It is possible to change. It's a global problem, but Indonesia is 2nd only to China with it's yearly contribution of an estimated 3.2 million metric tons of mismanaged waste, much of which ends up in the oceans. - see this about that. And from that Wall St. Journal Article:
In Indonesia—the world’s fourth-most-populous nation—people living along the coast generated about 3.22 million tons of mismanaged plastic waste in 2010, about 10% of the world total. Of that, between 0.48 million and 1.29 million metric tons ended up as marine waste, the researchers estimated.
Government officials in Indonesia said they are working out the details of a 2008 law on waste management to improve conditions.
“Public awareness is getting better” when it comes to domestic waste, said Ade Palguna Ruteka, head of the environment ministry’s Bureau of Planning and International Cooperation. Regarding ocean waste, he said, “Indonesia must be concerned about it.”
“Waste management is improving” even if “a growing population has meant more waste,” said Ilham Malik, the ministry’s deputy minister for hazardous wastes.
- dc