Indonesia's rubbish problem - 9th December 2020

Indonesia has a problem with its rubbish. Every year, 620,000 tonnes of plastic go in Indonesia's rivers. The rivers take the plastic to the sea. This is very bad for the world. The Indonesian government wants to stop this.

Scientists want to stop this problem too. First, they need to understand the problem. They need to know where the rubbish goes.

The scientists are working with France's space agency. It usually makes satellites for space. Now, it is making trackers. Scientists put them into Indonesian rivers. The trackers move with the rubbish. Every hour, they send information to satellites in space. Scientists in France look at the information.

Jean-Baptiste Voisin works for the space agency.

Voisin: "Most of them, 90 percent of them are actually beached on the Javanese coast here, ok, and only those - that one actually went to the, to that direction."

The trackers give the scientists useful information. 90 per cent of the rubbish goes back onto the beach. This is good news. It is easy to take the rubbish from the beach.

But 10 per cent of the rubbish goes out to sea.

Voisin: "Some of the one that we are released six months ago are still, are still drifting. Unfortunately, I would like to say, because it means they are still in the ocean, and most probably it means that most of those marine debris will, will reach all the, the big accumulation of plastic that we are all aware of, either in the Indian ocean Indian or Pacific, Pacific ocean."