Is This the Most Polluted Beach in the World?

Look at this. It's pure pandemonium, chaos. Welcome back to 4ocean, my name is Alex and we employ captains and crews around the world to clean the ocean. Today, we're gonna be taking you guys to a gnarly, gnarly polluted coastline. We're gonna clean it up with our Java team. So we're here at our Java location and this is actually my first time being able to meet the team. So I'm very, very excited. We got everybody here, I'm walking up and look at everybody already. Thank you! It's mental. Every location has their different ----, their different vibes. I love it. Give everybody a little bit of breakfast. Alright, let's look at the spread. This is incredible. This is from pineapple. Pineapple. Strawberry. Yup. And something like the small fruit, shredded. Really? Yeah, this is from fruit. Wow. Man, the spread looks incredible. I love that everything is wrapped in banana leaves. No plastic. All fresh, local fruit. That right there is good, clean living, baby. This is the lead head honcho here in the Java facility. This is Mr. Johan. So you worked in Jambrana for two years and then you came to Java to start and lead the Forest and Java team. Yeah. Okay. And then we've got Ranga who's gonna translate for us. So, wanna give you guys a quick tour through the facility so you can see what happens here at the Forest and Java facility and give you guys a little sneak peek. So, how big is the building here? It's about 50 times 18. Talk to me about this. What is your system here for? Schedule. Okay. So this is your daily schedule. You've got river boom one, two, three. River team, beach team. The route, the time start. And this is pounds? Presidency. Okay. So like a tenancy. Got it. All right. Office. Okay. Let's check this out. And one thing that I like, one thing that's funny is I literally, everything is branded so well. Everywhere. I was like, oh, check that out. The first aid kit. They got a nice little sticker on it. Nope. That's engraved. That's literally CNC engraved with some blue paint. Custom first aid kit. That's prime. But yeah, we've got the office here. This is... We've got everything. Computer, security systems. We do our Zooms. So we'll do our nighttime Zooms with everybody with a full company watch. We've got a little rolling cart here. This is where everybody does the Trash Track Ranger. Got it, okay. So this is where you input all the data. What is this place? This is Sandal's place. Sandal's. Everybody's Sandal's? Yes. For the river. For the river, okay. And I saw earlier, this is where everybody's hanging up the waders. Yes. Okay. So the waders are going here. You got the boot drying rack here. That's dialed in right there. Love it. So these are the little forage and skiffs, huh? The good old... So these are smaller plastic boats. These are used to clean plastic from our boom systems and the rivers. These are amazing because they're lightweight. You can throw them in the back of those little baby forage trucks. We can get all the plastic and we can be mobile, agile, hostile. So this is what we're using to educate our staff here to help them understand what are the different types of plastic and how do we sort them. So that's, as I mention constantly, the only way to recycle is to effectively sort and clean the items thoroughly. So this is just educating everybody on what we're doing, what places of plastic are what, and helping them to sort, right? Okay, the result of the sort. This station will wait here. This is the result. Okay, so everything goes back here, sort it, then it comes here. This is weighed. And then this is all the plastic ready to go back to Jembrana? Yes. Okay. Let's take a look back here at our sorting facility. Got it, okay. So we've got a little bit of a process flow. The trucks will come in from over here. They'll back up. They'll offload the plastic here. This is where it's all sorted. It's all prepared. And then it's brought into the facility. Ah, styrofoam. Lots of styrofoam? Styrofoam, yeah. So these are mountains of styrofoam. This is all the styrofoam that we're collecting. We're finding a lot of that in the rivers, the single-use plastic containers, all the foam, the floats, things like that. And then everybody's bikes. So this is the, it's a smaller operation. You know, I explain this as like we have satellite locations that are located in these different areas, and we do that to try and be more efficient with just having small pinpoints to go after these hot spots. But you back up the truck. You offload the plastic. It gets sorted. It gets weighed. We've got our office. The team manages it. And this is horse and java. You ready? Ready. Okay. All right, we'll see you on the dirty beach, my man. See you. See you soon. Big factories behind us for sardines. So a lot of things that, one of the main industries here is fishing. And that's one of the reasons why we've tried to hire local captains and crew is because they have all the experience, the expertise, and that time spent on the water fishing. And now they can use those same skill sets that translate into collecting plastic. So we're basically trying to pay fishermen to collect plastic instead of catching fish. We're here. Go, go, go. What do you say? Let's go. Go. This is supposed to be a very gnarly, dirty beach. We've got the whole squad. Everybody's ready. This is going to be super interesting to see. Whoa. Oh, my gosh. Look at this. What? A lot of location like this in Java, huh? This is crazy. There's millions of pounds on this coastline right here. Scoop, scoop, scoop. Wow. Holy hell. Crazy. Dirty. Yeah. Wow. There's the ocean. That's the riverbank. And he's stoked. Yeah. Dude. This is so heavy. I've never seen so much trash in my life. Like, this is unreal. Right on the coast. Not a pleasant smell, but it's just kind of like that's when you kind of like look at it from like a, you know, you take a step back perspective, and you're like, oh, this is actually you hear that it's a problem, but seeing it firsthand like this is like crazy. Game time? Yeah. Let's rock it. What do you say, rock and roll? Sikar. Sikar. Just pulled out this big net. And look at how deep this goes. It's like three, four, five feet deep. All just plastic. Trash. There you go, guys. Nice work, y'all. Okay, we got a tire. Packed with goodies. On top. Guys are so stoked. Telling you, the outlook on life. But that's gnarly. That's gnarly. So much plastic here. This is a this is a plastic emergency for sure. It's almost like you don't know where to start, where to end. We could be cleaning this beach for probably years. And I don't know if it still would be clean. This plastic goes down about five, seven feet deep. We're right in this local fishing village here. Right on the ocean. And this is mind-melting, the amount of plastic that's here. This just goes to show that we've got to find sustainable alternatives to single-use plastic. We know 100% that all of our captains and crew we're working hard, we're trying to clean up this plastic, but we know that that's not going to end the ocean plastic crisis. If we clean up this entire beach, if we sit here and work for two months, cleaning it up, next week, the next tide, might bring in a whole other wash of plastic. And we know that cleaning plastic alone will not end the ocean plastic crisis. We've got to drive sustainable solutions and try and find alternatives for single-use plastics because everything on this beach, everything on this beach, is basically single-use plastic. And we know that driving awareness and the clean-ups, the clean-ups are an amazing way to drive awareness and get people aware of the problem and know what's happening, but we know it's not going to end this. So, we say it a lot that cleaning the ocean alone will not end the ocean plastic crisis. We've got to find sustainable alternatives, but our hope is that we can drive that awareness through videos, through sharing these stories, sharing the impact that our captains are having every day, and hopefully we can have some influence. I know that governments, brands, corporations, everybody has their part to play in this problem right here, but I do think that we as consumers have a chance to generate that snowball effect, generate the momentum. Because if we can all vote with our dollar, speak up, make sustainability cool, make cutting down on single-use plastic cool, then we can create that snowball effect where governments will be receptive, brands will be receptive. I mean, if we're creating the financial incentive for corporations producing plastic, they'll have a means to, hey, what else can we do for consumers and just driving that demand. So, I really do believe that consumers are the tip of the spear and the movement is what's truly going to drive a massive change around the world because this right here, it's mental. I mean, it's overwhelming. But I can tell you right now, we're not going to stop till the ocean's clean. Yeah, my man. Yeah, buddy. All right. Bring it in, baby. Give me five. Give me five. So, what you got to do with these guys is you got to try and tie them off. Loop, swoop, and pull, baby. Loop, swoop, and pull. Yeah. So, we use these rice sacks. A lot of people ask us if these are single-use plastic bags. And we use these reusable rice sacks because they're small, they're reusable, they're easily manageable, and you can move them around. If we have those giant super sacks, those things weigh a few hundred pounds and they're very hard to transport. So, we've got these guys so that you can do it individually. You know, it's time to hit lunch. So, we've been cleaning for a few hours and now we're going to go grab some lunch and then hit the river. So, we got to bring this plastic back up and load it into the trucks. And so, we got all this plastic bagged up. We're going to bring it back to our facility to sort and prepare it for future recycling. But behind me, it's still so heavy. There's still so much plastic. This is going to be a huge, huge project. But we're determined. We're going to keep at it. And now we're going to get this plastic back to the shop and we're going to go have some lunch and then we're going to go clean up the river. You guys ready? Let's load it up. Let's do it. Working up some calories, man. We got to get some nasi goreng. Local Indonesian food. Woo! They're beefy. We got the truck loaded up. It's a big accomplishment with the team. We're going to have to be doing this a crazy amount at that location to get it cleaned up. We're stoked. These guys are stoked. Woo! Look at the team out here. Woo! Nice work, y'all. Everybody's fired up. But we're going to keep it rolling. Woo! I'm back with the boys. Come on. Man in the 50 cal. Man in the 50 cal. Here we go. Go, go, go. Let's do this. That was a great cleanup. We had a solid little morning. It's pretty overwhelming, I've got to be honest with you. That's a gnarly beach. I know there's been a lot of different groups that have been out there cleaning up and it's tough to get it cleaned. There's a lot that goes into that. We're going to brainstorm, see if we could tackle that and just keep cleaning that area, get it cleaned up. But one of the things is, all that plastic is being brought there from somewhere. So we were just talking about it. Yes, we want to clean it up, but also it might be beneficial to target the areas that might be the river right next to it or the different areas. We want to stop the plastic so that we don't clean up that beach, spend a month, two months cleaning it, and then just overnight it reloads the plastic. So we're going to spend some time. We're going to put our brains together, think through it, see what we can do. How long have you been working at 4ocean? Three months. Three years, okay. Two years. Three years? Three years, okay. So you've got three years and two years. Alright. Good? I'm trying, I'm trying. Give me a break here, I'm going to give it a go. Do you have children? And if so, how many? No. No? Married. Single? Bachelor? 10 out of 10! Okay. No? Okay. Pregnant. Okay. We will follow you on social media and hopefully many beautiful girls will follow you. Thank you very much. Okay, see you later. Look at this. This looks incredible. Wow. All sorts of stuff. What do you say, guys? Very nice. I'm about to make a name for myself. That's funny. Yeah, buddy. We're always trying to eat with the crew. I understand that at times it's customary age differences and employment levels. Managers, bosses, people sit separate. But for us, we only get a few days to spend with the team. So that's why at every clean-up we're trying to come in a little early, do a big team lunch so that we can sit and have a meal together. But then sit together. Just relax and eat together. It's super important to spend some time as a team. be able to do something besides just cleaning plastic. Kind of humanize it a little bit. It's a great connected team and this food is fantastic. So on the way back to the truck, I'm sitting there and I was using Google Translate. And I'm talking for probably 15 minutes. We're having full-on conversations. And they were understanding what I was saying. But then he just stops me and he goes, Hey, we speak Javanese, not Balinese. So I'm sitting here translating in a completely different language. I was like, oh man, I'm so sorry. Javanese. Similar or no? No. So this whole time I've been translating to Indonesian. And he's like, yo, we speak Javanese, not Balinese. Lunch was fantastic. And now it's time to hit the river. Let's go. We're going to Pampang. Yeah, my man, stick shift. You guys may have seen, if you follow our email newsletter. By the way, you should check out that newsletter. It's awesome. We give you guys updates from the field. Everything that's going on here at 4ocean. But that was where the story trash is in the trees. What happened was there was a large flood and the water level rose so high and then it went down that when the water receded there was massive amounts of plastic in the trees. All sorts of plastic bags and thin film and they're like bamboo, little prickly types of trees. So it was very difficult to clean. But we're going to go to that river. We're going to take a different route getting to the river. Today, we're going to do the bro pad. We got legends like this. What's up? We'll see ya. The waste issue is an incredibly complex topic and we get asked a lot, where is the plastic coming from? A lot of this plastic is coming from land based sources. You have these different areas. Right now, we're in Java which is just outside Bali. There's not a lot of waste management infrastructure. What happens is people are consuming these materials, these single use items. You saw a lot of what we cleaned this morning. I'm at a market here. This is just a little market in a little downtown area. Take a look at behind me. All of this is in single use plastic. They're like individually wrapped items. There's just a ton of single use plastic. A lot of these items are being consumed and they don't really have waste management infrastructure here. What's happening is it's ending up in the streets. It's ending up in the gutters. It's ending up in the rivers. When it rains, all of that material is being flushed out into the ocean. Like I said, it's a very complex issue because it is. A lot of these families don't have the means to buy large bottles of shampoo, large servings of coffee. A lot of them will literally purchase one individual single packet. A lot of that's what's ending up in these rivers and that's what's ending up down in the ocean. It's a pretty complex issue. It's not as easy as just cut out single use plastic. There's going to be a lot of innovation that has to happen in the packaging sector as well as finding ways to cut down on that. That's just something that we try and bring awareness to and just talk about that. We're heading down to the river now. What's up boys? Wow, look at this. Man, that's what we were talking about guys. The trash is in the trees. This is so wild. You can see all the bags that are stuck in there. That's what happens when this river rises and this bamboo. Let's show you guys. It's very prickly. It's got little thorns on it so everything's just getting caught. That's crazy. Pretty crazy. Plastic in trees. You might have seen all that viral footage of the trash in the trees and I'm here with the team and I'm able to see it first hand and it's crazy. What happens is on the Pampang River, that's this river that we're on right now, the water level's very low. We are in their winter or their dry season. During the summer, it's the rainy season and it's the monsoon season. What happens is this river goes from how low it is right now, the water level rises significantly and during those heavy floods, that's when all this trash is being pushed out the rivers and that's how you're getting plastic like this in the trees. It's wild to see it first hand. It takes so much attention and so much energy to recover it because these bamboo trees have literally little thorns or little prickly thorns that hold on to that plastic very tight. You have to pull each individual piece out. It's very labor intensive. It's crazy, crazy tough. But it's all just thin film and LDPE bags, all that stuff, all single-use plastics that's getting caught in the trees. You wouldn't believe it if you weren't seeing it for yourself. And you know what? No picture or video that I'm taking is capturing it. Justifying it? Yeah. It's wild. It's crazy. It's so entertaining. He can stay like three hours, four hours. Three or four hours just for this one tree. Wow. Okay. This is heavy. Oh my gosh. It's like a haunted house. We have to be more careful, right? Lots of thorns. Yes, so we can't be like fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you say monkey? We're up in the tree. And it's gnarly. This is not easy work. You can see what I was talking about with all the thorns. All the stuff is just like caught in there. Very, very hard to pull out. They said there were a bunch of snakes that they're finding in here. Which I don't doubt. I'm seeing spiders and stuff crawling around. But it's wild. Look at all the stuff in here, man. Look what we got. A mask. A piece of a soda can. Not easy. Not an easy task. I can tell you that. Not an easy task. The amount of trash that's in these trees is like, it's mind blowing. You have to work so hard to pull each one of those pieces out. It's not like you can just come up and just grab it. Yes, there is a lot of plastic in Indonesia. But some of it is very, very hard to collect. Look at this. Here's a nice, peaceful river. Really calm. It's serene. This would be a good spot to set up a hammock or just read a book. Just hang out. And then a couple steps away is pure pandemonium. Chaos. We gotta clean. Then we set up a hammock. Then we read a book. Take a little snooze. Work first. Work hard, then play hard. Let me show you what I mean by the thorn. So, it's all wrapped. You have to pull so hard on this stuff that it's just covered in dirt. A water bag. Woo! It's raining plastic. Hallelujah. They were saying that they regularly find snakes in the stuff. They'll even get back to the base and be unpacking stuff and there's snakes in the bags. Yeah, because they're wrapped up and you can't even see them. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about right there. Yeah, buddy. My man. There you go, buddy. Nice work. Alright, so now we chuck this out, huh? So, just like the beach, just like the ocean, we fill up these white super sacks, we close them off, and we huck them back. Yeah! Alright. Yeah, buddy. Nice little haul here. It's completely different than any other operation or cleanups that we've seen in the past. So, it's equally cool because it's something new. It's just crazy. This is just something we've never really gotten our hands and our eyes on personally. Seeing it first hand is different. It just hits different. It's wild. It's just absolutely wild. There's no other way to explain it. It is some seriously difficult work. Climbing the trees. So, one thing that they said is there's a ton of snakes in this. I'm not even kidding. In the trees, see how we're pulling stuff out? They said that a lot of the times the snakes hide in that type of stuff. And not only do they get it when they're pulling stuff out, but they're even saying that once they get back to the facility, they'll be wrapped up in something and they'll be sorting and there'll be a snake in it. So, you're good. You're good. Tony hates snakes. He's not a fan. You're good. There's no snakes here, but I'm not going to lie, I felt a little bit like you. Ahh! 15 feet up, like stuck in there. And I was like, okay, if a snake pops out of here and jumps on me right now... Ahh! Odds are I'm probably getting startled and I'm going to fall to this solid rock bed below me. And you can see the structure of this tree now, but at first when it was full of plastic, anything could have been hiding behind it. Oh, a jaguar. A tiger. Seriously, there was that much plastic. A big grizzly. There could be a grizzly up there, I swear. Not easy work. The team works hard. They do an amazing job. And they do it with a smile on their face. It's been super cool being able to see it out here, and this is a different dynamic. We've literally recovered plastic off the coastlines, we've recovered ghost nets out of the mangroves, we've recovered tires from the bottom of the ocean, but never have we recovered plastic from the trees. It's completely different than any other kind of cleanup operation we've done. So, it's just wild. There's nets in the mangroves, but when you say there's plastic in the trees, you're like, wait a second, what? This is actually pretty clean now. We just got this one. Yeah, I got that guy clean, but you saw it before. It's just wild to see. So, super stoked to be here. I feel very grateful to spend time with the team. I love being able to be shoulder-to-shoulder with them, cleaning, climbing. Having some impact and killing it with the team. Local legends. Awesome. I think it means be careful. Caution, caution. Hey guys, how are you? It's impact right there. It's a fresh bike, isn't it? It's a really cool bike. Alright guys, we'll see you later. My man. Legends. Every pound of plastic that we collect is tracked and documented. So, you may have seen some of the crew members out in the field today snapping photos on an iPhone. And what they're doing is they're taking photos of before, during, and after the cleanups. And then once we get back to our facility, we are weighing each individual super sack and then taking a photo of that super sack to show the plastic that's been collected. So they're getting weights, he's literally taking a photo of each one, and then right here on this board, if you don't mind Jason, we've got all the weights of each individual super sack. So we're filling out all the content, all the data, everything from our cleanups and tracking every single pound. And we have photos of every pound of food. So, that's one thing that we're doing to try and create transparency behind our cleanups and show all the plastic that's been collected all around the world. That was every single step that we do to track every pound. So you guys have had a chance to see the cleanup operations, you saw the river operations, you got to see what these localizers are like. Amazing. And so, guys, if you're liking this content, please don't forget to like, comment, share, subscribe, all the above. Just show us some love, because you are actually showing all of these captains and crews some love. So thank you guys so much for following along. We're super stoked to bring you guys all the behind-the-scenes footage of our cleanup operations around the world. And we're not going to stop until the ocean's clean, y'all. Woo!