Big bang Bunaken launch

Bunaken Island is one of five islands that sit within the heart of Bunaken National Marine Park, a hotspot for marine biodiversity. The thousands of divers that visit the Park each year are treated to pristine coral walls, a huge variety of marine animals and crystal clear waters. Some of the Park’s more unusual claims to fame include it being home to 7 out of the 8 species of giant clams that occur in the world as well has having seven times more genera of coral than Hawaii. 70% of all known fish species in the Indo-Western Pacific can be found in this epicentre of the Coral Triangle. Bunaken Island is the most popular island for tourists to visit and is home to around 1,000 people.

The coral wall at Bunaken Island. Image credit: Pink Plankton

It's the same old story though – this beautiful, ecologically important area is under threat. Every day, the tides bring more plastic onto the island’s shores and reefs. The white sand beaches often end up littered with waste of various shapes, sizes and materials. Some of this comes from Manado, some from as far away as the Philippines or China, but a lot of it comes from the islands themselves. Bunaken is somewhat unique within the archipelago in that it has some waste management infrastructure in the form of an incinerator. However, the installation of this striking piece of kit hasn’t solved the island’s waste problem. Firstly, it’s too small to handle the flow of waste that locals and visitors are producing. At the moment, you’ll find a big pile of waste right beside the incinerator being burnt out in the open. Secondly, burning plastic is not a sustainable solution. Even a properly constructed incinerator releases harmful chemicals and carbon into the atmosphere.

More than 30,000 tourists visit Bunaken Park each year so working with the resorts is super important when it comes to tackling the tide of plastic threatening to choke the coral and sea life that’s made Bunaken famous. That’s where the No-Trash Triangle Initiative comes in.

We’re expanding once again following successful roll outs on Bangka, Gangga, Siladen and across Manado. Thanks to the team at Bunaken Oasis Resort, we’re bringing our waste management model to the busiest island in Bunaken National Marine Park.

Bunaken Oasis is a luxury dive resort which is dedicated to delivering a first-class experience for their guests. Ensuring that the resort is run in a sustainable manner sits at the heart of the team’s business model. Owned by husband-wife duo, Simon and Elaine Wallace, the resort opened in 2016. Since the opening, the team has dutifully put in place several initiatives to minimise their impact on the local environment. These include installing two fresh water makers and using UV water treatment to make drinking water which they provide to the local community as well as guests. They also treat their wastewater and have been sorting their waste and recycling what they can for the past couple of years. There is a dedicated turtle hatchery on site and an established mangrove planting scheme to rebuild Bunaken’s mangrove forest. And their sustainability efforts don’t stop with environmental schemes. They have established training and scholarship programmes to encourage local young people to complete further education, work placements or PADI dive training.

This is a resort that truly puts sustainability first and we’re delighted to help them further their efforts by rolling out our waste management service to them. We’ve carried out training with their staff to make sure they know how to sort resort waste according to our criteria and will start collecting waste from this month, transporting it to Bahowo where it will be picked up by our logistics partner, DSG for recycling/further processing.

In addition to the resort programme, our partner DSG have also signed a deal with Bunaken’s local government to collect the island’s beach plastic, ensuring that even more materials are sent for recycling.

A big thank you to the team for their support so far. We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship.