Workers load plastic materials onto conveyor belts to be washed and shredded at Re>Pal Recycling facility in Pasuruan, East Java. Re>Pal, previously Enviro Pallet was established in Bali in 2012, move the facility two years ago to Pasuruan as they received protests and rejections from the surrounding community. The facility recycles low-value plastics such as polypropylene, LDPE, and HDPE including plastic bags, plastic wraps, and some food packaging. Re>Pal handles 10.000 tonnes of plastics every year, in which 240 tonnes of it came from Bali. The plastic arrived in the facility will be washed, shredded, melted and molded into plastic pallets which can hold up to 1.2 tonnes of weight within 2 years of usage.
Nyimas Laula is an Indonesian photojournalist whose works focus on environmental and human rights issues across the country. In 2015, Nyimas documented the arrival of Rohingya refugees in Aceh and covered one of the worst forest fires in the country’s history. For six months in 2019, she followed the trail of plastic pollution on the island of Bali for National Geographic. Nyimas’s work were recently displayed in a collective exhibition by UNDP on Far-Reaching Fallout of COVID-19 at Photoville in Brooklyn. Her ongoing work INSIDE, about personal experience facing the global pandemic, has traveled to Photoville in New York City, Hong Kong Press Club in Hong Kong, Jamii Esplanade in Toronto, Canada. She co-directed a documentary film series about the impact of COVID-19 in the community of coconut sugar farmers in Central Java, Indonesia. Her works have been published in The New York Times, National Geographic, Reuters, Washington Post Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal.
Quick links to POY Asia 2022 Judges: Nyimas Laula / Liang-Pin Tsao / Anush Babajanyan / Ikuru Kuwajima / Tanvi Mishra / Samuel He / Jean Chung / Sanjit Das / Maika Elan / Oded Wagenstein
Tourists ride a horse near pile plastic trash washed ashore in Kedonganan Beach, Indonesia's Island of Gods, Bali, January 27, 2019. Every year, large quantities of organic and non-organic trash washed ashore, covering Bali's famous beaches in the west coast from Canggu to Kuta until Jimbaran and Kedonganan during wet season (November-March), making it known as 'garbage season'. There's an increasing amount of trashes washed ashore in 2019 which reach up to 250 tonnes from previously only 50 tonnes per day collected from beaches in Badung Regency.
"The photograph that moves me is one that touches my emotions, helps me understand the nuances of an issue, and then inspires me to push for necessary changes."
Nyimas Laula
A Rohingya migrant who arrived in Indonesia by boat looks out the window of a temporary shelter in Aceh Timur regency, near Langsa in Indonesia’s Aceh Province May, 2015.
From INSIDE — Since I have been self-isolating myself, my day to day life has been spent on staring into computer screen trying to keep my mind occupied, though my mind so often wanders. Here, my thoughts wander to my Mom, a retired public health consultant who still occasionally go on and off to the frontline to help. We live separately on different islands, but her presence is near as her blanket wrap around my body, keeping me warm every night.
