PULAU SERIBU, Indonesia — Mustaghfirin unmoors his boat every day in the Thousand Islands archipelago, two hours’ sailing from the Jakarta coast, and sets off into a sea filled with garbage. “This plastic waste is extremely annoying,” Mustaghfirin told Mongabay Indonesia in April. “The motor we use to propel the boat is small, so it often gets jammed.” In 1950, global production of plastic amounted to around 2 million metric tons per year. By 2019, the world produced more than 450 million metric tons, according to production figures compiled by Our World in Data at the University of Oxford in the U.K. In just the last two decades, production of these polymer resins has doubled, the data show. In coastal low- and middle-income countries like Indonesia and the Philippines, a large share of throwaway plastic flows down rivers and out to sea, where it asphyxiates, ensnares and poisons an array of marine life. On average, 53-year-old Mustaghfirin, a resident of Pari Island in this archipelago about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of the Indonesian capital, will have to stop fishing for two days every week to work on the engine, mostly untangling old plastic waste obstructing the propeller. Recently the boat’s engine overheated and broke down after hitting a mine of plastic, leaving Mustaghfirin stranded. Mustaghfirin is also catching fewer fish, missing out on what he estimates is up to 2 million rupiah ($125) of revenue per day. Tono, another Pari Island fisherman, said he’s now catching just a quarter…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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