This may sound geeky, but I've always been passionate about recycling. It has always just seemed like the better option to me. It is really appealing, the thought that my impact on the globe doesn't have to be a negative one. Like many other decent human beings, I am greatly concerned over the destruction of nature. Like many other decent human beings living in the first world, however, I often forget how absolute this reality is. It’s easy to forget about something when it doesn’t hit close to home.
I just spent the past three weeks in Malaysia and spent about a week in Borneo, where a group of my classmates and I lived in a longhouse with a local tribe of natives. Quick clarification: this longhouse isn't the stereotypical bamboo structure of centuries gone by. The Iban tribespeople have modernized; they have television and Dish satellite. They have smartphones and wifi. But they haven't forgotten their roots. They still bathe in the river as a community. They still wear their sarongs. They have crazy dance parties where they do the ngajat, a native dance, and they wear an enormous headdress with argus pheasant feathers sticking out of it.
One thing the Iban haven't gone back on, unfortunately, is their habit of throwing rubbish away anywhere. This wasn't problematic when it was just banana leaves and bits of bark. With their modernization, unfortunately, has come an unforeseen issue-- a contamination of their rivers. My housemother had a tiny little rubbish bin under her sink that I cheerfully used to discard receipts, plastic packaging, and empty bottles. I had absolutely no qualms about any of this until the final evening we stayed with them.
We had spent the day touring the nearby fields and other areas, and we came back disgusting. As our vans arrived at the longhouse, we rushed into our sarongs, grabbed our toiletries and bolted out to the river. It has rained the night before and the river had swollen, the current was faster, but it still felt amazing to us all. The sun was filtering golden through the emerald trees, the sky was bright blue with patches of fluffy clouds, and it felt like something out of a movie.
I was in the last group to leave the river when we heard a slight commotion coming from further upstream. We looked over and saw a floating bag of trash heading toward us. "Catch it!" Someone yelled, but as we looked around, we realized that the river was full of trash. If we caught it, where would we put it? It would inevitably be thrown back in the river. Realizing the futility of our situation, we sadly watched the bag float out of sight.
I did a quick scan of our surroundings. There was a diaper sticking to some nearby reeds. Plastic bottles and snack bags surfaced in and out of the river like fish. We had literally just bathed here; this felt disgusting. I realized that the Iban used this water for lots of things other than bathing: it’s their cooking water, cleaning water, laundry water, and irrigation water. This way of life is completely unsustainable if they keep throwing trash into it.
It really impacted me, and the more I look back on it, the more I realize that they simply did not know any better. They didn’t really know any different way of life, and they don’t have any alternatives. While we sit here in the first world and judge them for being unclean, we’re the ones creating these disposable products, creating all this trash, perpetuating this problem.
It may be naïve and unrealistic of me, but I really wish something could be done to help out the natives in Borneo. Whether it be to open up a recycling center or anything along those lines, it would be really helpful. But for now, I suppose, all I can do is my part and cut back on the amount of things I throw away.
