NGUYET CAT (According to Guardian)
Instead of posting entertaining videos or following the latest trends online, Pandawara - a group of five Indonesian youths in their early 20s - chose to post more than 100 short videos about campaigns to clean up polluted rivers and beaches. Those videos attracted millions of views and more than 100 million likes from netizens. With more than 9 million followers on TikTok and Instagram, Pandawara became online stars and mobilized thousands of volunteers to join the trash cleaning activities.
Hundreds of people joined the Pandawara group to clean up trash in Bandung, West Java on July 26.
Pandawara was founded in 2022 after their homes were damaged by flooding, mainly caused by garbage clogging rivers. “We have a team of ‘hunters’ who look for rivers with urgent garbage problems, where flooding can occur after rains,” Gilang Rahma, a Pandawara member, said of the group’s activities.
Pandawara's hometown is Greater Bandung, West Java, Indonesia's third-largest metropolitan area. The area generates 2,000 tons of waste every day, with about 10-20% of it not being sent to landfills for treatment but often dumped into rivers. Prima Mayaningtyas, an official in West Java, said the city's huge amount of waste has exceeded the landfill's capacity by 800%. This is a common situation in 280 cities across Indonesia.
When they first started in 2022, the Pandawara group mainly cleaned the rivers around their community, wearing protective gear like rubber gloves and boots. After gaining online fame for their full-time river “rescue” efforts, they were noticed by the government and invited to work with them. As their popularity grew, their cleanup efforts expanded to other islands in Indonesia.
59% of rivers in Indonesia are heavily polluted The Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK) said that 59% of Indonesia's rivers are severely polluted. Sources of pollution include industrial waste (such as oil, gas and mining), domestic waste and livestock waste. However, Ms. Luckmi Purwandari - Director of Water Pollution Control of KLHK - said that the current situation has improved compared to 2015, when up to 79.5% of rivers in the "land of thousands of islands" were always in a state of severe pollution. |
On July 10, Pandawara cleared 300 tons of trash from a beach in Lampung province on Sumatra island, with the help of more than 3,000 volunteers. In its latest campaign on July 27, the Pandawara group mobilized about 600 volunteers to help clean up 17 tons of waste from the Bugel Dam, which connects to West Java's longest river. "Sometimes when we call for volunteers, thousands of people sign up, but we can only select a few dozen people due to limited space," Gilang said, adding that the group hopes to use TikTok to raise awareness among Gen Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) about environmental pollution.
Indeed, Pandawara’s work has helped change and raise awareness of environmental protection among many other young people. A typical example is Resti Khairunnisa, a 22-year-old girl living near the Bugel Dam, who immediately joined the volunteer cleaning activity even though she had just finished her night shift. Resti said she was inspired by Pandawara’s videos and would not hesitate to wade into the river to clean up the trash. “I used to worry about waste pollution, but this is the first time I have taken action,” Resti said after three hours of cleaning and being covered in mud.
21-year-old university student Imam Ahmad Fadhil said he had been following Pandawara since before they became famous and praised them for their persistence in “rescuing” polluted rivers and beaches. However, Fadhi said community-based environmental initiatives were not enough. “Some people know that littering is wrong, but their villages don’t have waste treatment facilities, they don’t have vehicles to transport their waste, so they have no choice,” he explained.
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