One travel vlogger recently had a disappointing experience while visiting a waterfall in Bali, Indonesia — instead of the pristine landscape that other travelers' Instagram photos had led him to expect, he was confronted by a big pile of trash.
Dale Philip (@dalephilipvlogs) recorded himself in front of the Pengempu Waterfall.
@dalephilipvlogs Unexpected Surprise at Bali Waterfall 🇮🇩 I visited the Pengempu waterfall in Bali, Indonesia. I'd see this place looking amazing in many flashy, glamorous Instagram photos but when I arrived there myself I found out that it was covered in garbage. #Bali #Indonesia #Travel #TravelAdvice #SoloTravel #BudgetTravel #TravelVlog ♬ original sound - Dale Philip
"I did not expect to see all this junk lying here. That is an absolute shame," he told his 800,000 TikTok followers. "It's probably not safe at all to be swimming in that water. It would probably make me sick."
Many Tripadvisor users who visited the waterfall agreed with Dale's assessment, writing things like: "Unfortunately the water is very brown, and there is a lot of rubbish in the creek."
While plastic waste is a big problem all over the world, the problem is especially pronounced in Bali. A popular tourist destination, the Indonesian island suffers from a combination of irresponsible visitors, a poor waste management system, and literal tons of trash washing up on its beaches regularly.
Dale's TikTok followers also mourned the state of littering and trash accumulation in Bali.
"Even the beaches in Bali [have] a lot of rubbish," one commenter wrote.
The problem is so bad that the government declared a trash emergency in 2017. Attempts to combat the trash crisis have included, notably, a nonprofit called Sungai Watch installing 100 trash-collecting barriers in Bali's rivers.
However, as videos have shown, even the trash collected by these 100 barriers is just a drop in the bucket.
This type of issue is not limited to Bali, of course. One hiker recently shared similar images from a waterfall in Northern Virginia.
The easiest and simplest thing that we can all do to help combat this problem is to be conscientious and responsible visitors wherever we go — in other words, don't litter!
Getting the chance to enjoy nature is a wonderful privilege, especially at a time when so many habitats and ecosystems have been threatened and harmed by human activities. We should strive to treat nature with respect and to leave each place that we visit as good or better than how we found it, for the benefit of the wildlife that live there and the visitors who will come after us.
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