A Call for Zero Waste Society
A documentary featuring acclaimed actor Jeremy Irons highlights the alarming global problem of waste, including that in Indonesia's own backyard.
Traveling from polluted beaches to toxic rivers, Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons highlighted an alarming global problem of waste, including Jakarta’s Ciliwung river, in a feature-length documentary: Trashed.
The powerful award-winning documentary explores the environmental and human costs of mankind’s excessive generation and irresponsible disposal of waste materials. The film, launched in 2012 is highly relevant for Indonesia, where a great majority of waste is burned, recycling activities are scarce, trash collection infrastructure remains inadequate.
The lack of awareness of these problems worsens it. In Indonesia people still think nothing of tossing away trash casually, often out of the window of a luxury car. Rivers and sewers are clogged with toxic waste, making cities vulnerable to massive floods in the rainy season, as many of us have experienced first hand.
The solution is no rocket science, but it takes some effort to instill a sense of responsibility in every citizen to make the country a cleaner place. Failure to do anything about this now will make things worse, warns Irons, putting us on a highway to a very expensive and unhealthy future.
“We make everybody wear seatbelts now. That was a bore, wasn’t it? But we do it, and we don’t think about it anymore. Very simple to do the same with how we deal with our garbage,” Irons said.
