Let's Gangga!

We’ve officially expanded our waste management programme to a new territory - the island of Gangga! Our dream of replicating the system we’ve spent years crafting on Bangka is becoming a reality. This is just the beginning of our ambition to roll out effective waste management solutions across the Coral Triangle.

Our resort partner programme has been going from strength to strength over the past six months on Bangka Island and word has spread. Our friends at Gangga Island Resort have long been interested in finding a more sustainable way to deal with the waste they produce and collect from their resort beach. Up to 2020, they arranged shipments with their own boat to the Sulawesi mainland, where they had their own truck to drive the waste to the Manado landfill. However loss of earnings over lockdown forced the team to sell the boat and truck they’d been using for these shipments. And so the team was left with piles of bagged waste as well as ever increasing transportation costs. That’s where we’ve come in. In exchange for a small monthly fee, we’ll provide land transportation from Serei where the Gangga boat will drop off their waste, access to reliable recycling services as well as training for their staff on how to properly sort the waste. The forward thinking management team officially signed the partner resort agreement this week, formalising the relationship and strengthening the resort’s commitment to protecting the Coral Triangle for generations to come.

Gangga Island Resort has been around since 1998 . Owned by an Indonesian team under the Lotus Hotels umbrella, the resort has been a constant presence on the small island for decades now. Similarly to Bangka, Gangga has about 2,000 inhabitants. However it is much smaller and so the island can feel a little busier. Home to the same crystal seas, impressive coral reefs, lush greenery and tropical beaches that Bangka is renowned for, Gangga also faces similar threats to its stunning ecosystem. Each day the tides bring mounds of plastic to the island’s shores, threatening wildlife and food sources alike. That’s why the adoption of a proper waste management system is vital.

There are two main villages on the island - Gangga Satu, which has a mainly Christian population and Gangga Dua, which has a predominantly Muslim population. Similarly to Bangka, these locals are often left with no choice but to burn or throw their rubbish in the sea. We’re hoping that by partnering with Gangga Resort, we can start to make a difference to the general community’s awareness of plastic pollution.

We’ve carried out our first training session with the team today - teaching representatives from their housekeeping, landscaping and HR teams about the different types of waste and the importance of sorting it properly. The team will continue to compost much of their organic waste to feed their vegetable garden. Combined with our waste management and recycling programme, the percentage of Gangga Resort’s waste sent to landfill will decrease significantly. Eventually we hope to set up a sorting station at the resort so that staff have a dedicated space to process the waste. This week’s agreement is just the beginning of a long and impactful relationship!