For a lot of tourists, Bali conjures up images of white sandy beaches, crystal clear waters, expansive rice fields and plush, dense jungles – but the truth in lots of areas could be very different.
The favored island has long suffered from a rubbish crisis, with waste washing up along the tourist hotspot beaches of Kuta, Seminyak, Legian and Jimbaran from the months of October to March.
It’s an annual phenomenon that sees plastic, garbage, and waste from shipping vessels often carried into land by strong winds, high tides, and driving rains.
The island’s open landfills are also an enormous problem. As they turn into fuller, they put pressure on local waste management operations.
Rubbish is then tipped into waterways and dumped in unofficial landfill sites, often on the sides of a few of Bali’s most beautiful natural landscapes.
Officials have implemented solutions, and while some have had an impact, others have fallen flat.
Nevertheless, what some may not know is that over the past two years, beach cleansing robots have been tested in a few of island’s top resorts by major hotel brands.
Now, local leaders are sharing their hopes that these high tech hoovers could help change the best way by which the island’s hottest beaches are maintained.
Alit Sucipta, the Deputy Regent of Badung, visited the tourist hotspot, FINNS Beach Club in Canggu to formally launch the deployment of the BeBot Smart Beach Cleansing Robot.
The robot, valued at around $65,000 USD, has been a resident of the beach club for 3 months, but on Tuesday, local leaders got here together to debate the long run of beach management in Bali’s busiest tourism resort.
“In the event you take a look at what we’ve seen, this can be a reference point that we want to check,” Deputy Regent Sucipta told reporters, as per The Bali Sun.
“This robot could be used, but with an excellent larger capability, so we are able to provide it to every traditional village in coastal areas.”
He explained while they see potential in it, the robot isn’t yet in a position to maximize its performance.
“Perhaps in the long run we are able to use the identical robot machine but with a bigger capability so it might collect other sorts of waste,” he added.
He hopes other businesses will follow suit and spend money on similar technologies to combat the island’s waste problem.
In line with The Bali Sun, the solar-powered robot has been working 2.5 hours a day, and has been in a position to clear 180 meter stretches of Berawa Beach and Perancak Beach.
“Since this step began, now we have succeeded in reducing the waste disposed of in landfills from 80 percent to twenty percent based on last yr’s audit,” Director of PT Pantai Semara Nusantara (FINNS Beach Club), Wayan Asrama said.
“Nevertheless it’s not finished there, by the top of 2025, our goal is for under 5 percent of waste to be entering landfill.”
It comes as Bali Provincial Government confirmed the Suwung TPA, Bali’s largest open landfill, is officially closed.
Environmental NGOs like Mudfish No Plastic and Sungai Watch have also gone to great lengths to tackle illegal landfills and beach plastic, in addition to creating recent systems to recycle and repurpose inorganic waste.
Gary Bencheghib, a French filmmaker living in Indonesia, is an element of Sungai Watch, a team dedicated to “protecting waterways in Indonesia”.
The not-for-profit organization revealed 1,053,270kg of waste was collected in 2024, 503 clean-ups organized and 104 trash barriers installed.
“This brings our total collection to 2,796,360kg of waste, 1,628 total clean-ups organized, and 330 barriers installed since we began cleansing rivers 4 years ago, in 2020,” they said in an Instagram post.
For a lot of tourists, Bali conjures up images of white sandy beaches, crystal clear waters, expansive rice fields and plush, dense jungles – but the truth in lots of areas could be very different.
The favored island has long suffered from a rubbish crisis, with waste washing up along the tourist hotspot beaches of Kuta, Seminyak, Legian and Jimbaran from the months of October to March.
It’s an annual phenomenon that sees plastic, garbage, and waste from shipping vessels often carried into land by strong winds, high tides, and driving rains.
The island’s open landfills are also an enormous problem. As they turn into fuller, they put pressure on local waste management operations.
Rubbish is then tipped into waterways and dumped in unofficial landfill sites, often on the sides of a few of Bali’s most beautiful natural landscapes.
Officials have implemented solutions, and while some have had an impact, others have fallen flat.
Nevertheless, what some may not know is that over the past two years, beach cleansing robots have been tested in a few of island’s top resorts by major hotel brands.
Now, local leaders are sharing their hopes that these high tech hoovers could help change the best way by which the island’s hottest beaches are maintained.
Alit Sucipta, the Deputy Regent of Badung, visited the tourist hotspot, FINNS Beach Club in Canggu to formally launch the deployment of the BeBot Smart Beach Cleansing Robot.
The robot, valued at around $65,000 USD, has been a resident of the beach club for 3 months, but on Tuesday, local leaders got here together to debate the long run of beach management in Bali’s busiest tourism resort.
“In the event you take a look at what we’ve seen, this can be a reference point that we want to check,” Deputy Regent Sucipta told reporters, as per The Bali Sun.
“This robot could be used, but with an excellent larger capability, so we are able to provide it to every traditional village in coastal areas.”
He explained while they see potential in it, the robot isn’t yet in a position to maximize its performance.
“Perhaps in the long run we are able to use the identical robot machine but with a bigger capability so it might collect other sorts of waste,” he added.
He hopes other businesses will follow suit and spend money on similar technologies to combat the island’s waste problem.
In line with The Bali Sun, the solar-powered robot has been working 2.5 hours a day, and has been in a position to clear 180 meter stretches of Berawa Beach and Perancak Beach.
“Since this step began, now we have succeeded in reducing the waste disposed of in landfills from 80 percent to twenty percent based on last yr’s audit,” Director of PT Pantai Semara Nusantara (FINNS Beach Club), Wayan Asrama said.
“Nevertheless it’s not finished there, by the top of 2025, our goal is for under 5 percent of waste to be entering landfill.”
It comes as Bali Provincial Government confirmed the Suwung TPA, Bali’s largest open landfill, is officially closed.
Environmental NGOs like Mudfish No Plastic and Sungai Watch have also gone to great lengths to tackle illegal landfills and beach plastic, in addition to creating recent systems to recycle and repurpose inorganic waste.
Gary Bencheghib, a French filmmaker living in Indonesia, is an element of Sungai Watch, a team dedicated to “protecting waterways in Indonesia”.
The not-for-profit organization revealed 1,053,270kg of waste was collected in 2024, 503 clean-ups organized and 104 trash barriers installed.
“This brings our total collection to 2,796,360kg of waste, 1,628 total clean-ups organized, and 330 barriers installed since we began cleansing rivers 4 years ago, in 2020,” they said in an Instagram post.
