Maintain tourism, protect Indonesia

Sunday June 8, 2025 – 12:28 Wib

Yakarta, alive – One of the problems that continues to eclipse Indonesian tourism is garbage. This problem is no longer just a matter of cleanliness, but has touched environmental aspects, tourist comfort, to the image of the nation.

In several tourist destinations, especially those in the islands, we see how garbage, both those that are discarded and by current sea currents, began to erode our extraordinary natural beauty.

Teguh Anantawikrama, vice president of Kadin Indonesia in the field of digital transformation and technology welcomed the Clean Tourism Movement that was initiated by the Minister of Tourism, Mrs. Widiyanti Putri Wardhana. This movement is very appropriate, because it touches the root of the problem: collective habits and consciousness.

Maintaining cleaning not only can the regional officers or managers be charged, but it must be our shared moral responsibility. As a citizen, as a tourist, as a nation.

Indonesia: an open and vulnerable country

Indonesia has 17,380 verified islands. This archipelago is a gift, but also a mandate. Each island is the face of Indonesia, and each face must be clean, friendly and healthy.

But our geographical conditions also have unique challenges. Indonesia is crossed by large maritime currents between Benuan, known as Indonesia through flow (ITF). This current flows more than 15 million cubic meters of water per second from the Pacific Ocean to the Indian Ocean. This current carries nutrition and heat, but also has the potential to bring waste from neighboring countries and inter -island in Indonesia.

Reality we have to face

The data show that Indonesia produces around 3.2 million tons of plastic waste per year that are not well managed, and 1.29 million tons of them enter the sea. If it is not handled quickly and strategically, our ocean that should be a marine tourist path can become a global waste path.

From the problem to the solution: the waste is energy

As an activist of mismers, creative and social economy, I think that waste is not only a burden, but also opportunities. With an innovative and collaborative approach, we can turn waste into resources:
• Process waste in electrical energy through safe and efficient technology to energy.
• Recycle plastic in construction materials, furniture or creative products.
• Change organic waste in compost and biogas that are beneficial for the sectors of agriculture and domestic energy.
• Build a circular economy, where waste is part of a productive cycle and creates new jobs.

These steps not only exceed the cleaning problem, but also strengthen people’s energy and economic security.

Let’s take care of Indonesia together

I invite all interested parties, the government, the private sector, local communities and tourists, to make a clean tourist movement not only a campaign, but a moral and cultural movement.

We can start from simple things:
– Bring our garbage home.
– Waste management independently in the surrounding environment.
– Admit the processing and recycling of UMKM waste.
– Install environmental education from an early age.

Indonesia is too beautiful to take.
Too valuable to contaminate.

Let’s take care of our islands.
Let’s take care of our oceans.
Let’s take care of our future

With conscience, actions and with productive creativity.

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