The ugly legacy of tourism in Bali: thousands of tons of plastic waste wash up on beaches

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00:00Bali's beaches are among the most beautiful in the world.

00:03In 2023, more than 5 million people descended on this Indonesian resort.

00:09But behind the picture-perfect image is an ugly legacy of over-tourism,

00:14a yearly haul of 300,000 tonnes of plastic waste.

00:18There is so much plastic to pick up here.

00:22It's a neighbourhood where there are a lot of people.

00:26Samsol is part of a programme launched in Bali in 2019, known as Plastic Credit.

00:33Big multinationals, including Coca-Cola,

00:36offset their own plastic consumption by financing waste collection on the island.

00:47Today, workers have collected 6 kilos of waste that will be registered on an app

00:52and converted into plastic credits.

00:55Companies will then buy the credits,

00:57with some of the money earned spent on wage rises for Samsol and other waste collectors.

01:03Thanks to this programme, we get support when the price of plastic is low.

01:07For someone poor like me, it's very important, so I'm very grateful.

01:13Paying waste collectors more to collect and recycle waste makes perfect sense.

01:18Evidence of destructive tourism can be found here on the Gili Islands, two hours from Bali.

01:24This French woman, who's lived here for more than 20 years,

01:31opened the tiny island's first recycling centre to address the mountains of garbage.

01:36But she says that initiatives such as Plastic Credit

01:39will fail unless there's also a change in attitude.

01:43Tourists don't realise the scale of the problem.

01:45The white sandy beaches, the turquoise water, that's what attracts people.

01:51But the darker side is here.

01:55More than one million tonnes of plastic from Indonesia end up in the ocean every year.

02:00As the second largest producer of plastic waste in the world after China,

02:04the country is finally taking action.

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