Prigi : "I want the health impact of microplastics to become a hot topic in coffee shops"

 Why do you always talk about the river? 

Prigi Arisandi and Amiruddin Muttaqin in the Nusantara River Expedition Mission
Detecting microplastic in 68 River in Indonesia (11/12/2022)

      I love My river, Brantas river is source of drinking water for more than 6 million people, but today my river full with plastic waste, 42% waste that floating in brantas river is plastic waste and 37% is diapers When rivers are polluted with microplastics, it will accumulate in the food chain that will harm human health. I want everyone to know the dangers of microplastics, so they will reduce single-use plastic and stop dumping trash into our rivers. But I realize it is a difficult task to make people aware on microplastic pollution. "how can they see microplastics as problem when large plastics pollution cannot  be seen.

1.   What is the relationship between river plastic waste and ocean pollution?

   

Plastic waste entangled in the tree on the 
riparians of the Ciliwung River

Rivers become distributors of plastic waste from land to sea due to poor waste managementEvery year, Indonesia produce 8 million tons of plastic waste, only 3 million tons are properly managed, 5 million tons of plastic waste were burned and littering the environment. Total 2.6 million tons are dumped into river and finally ended to the sea.  In tropical countries, microplastic in the river breaks down faster.

How do you involve the community in controlling plastic waste into rivers?

Then I tried to connect plastic pollution impact to the community I did plastic cleanup operation, cleaned the trees that were wrapped in plastic waste on the river bank, mangrove forest  it was also failed, not many people support that campaign I started the campaign to clean up and pick up diapers waste that floating in the river, that will break down into microplastic. With Ecoton I picked up diaper waste along the rivers on the Java island. And shows that plastic waste clogging our river. Plastic waste entangled in the trees on the banks of the Ciliwung river

Did your action have a good impact?

Plastic Tree in Bengawan Solo River

It was failed to encourage people’s awareness to stop dumping diapers into rivers. Then with Ecoton I did microplastic research in our food and drinking water sources, and we found plastic debris in the fish stomach. “Microplastics disturbed ecosystem balance in the river.  Microplastics affect the sex formation of fish, 80% of the fish in the river are female, and in the downstream, 25% of the fish were found to be intersexual fish. I found microplastics in water samples from 24 rivers in Indonesia, sea salt samples, 40 species fish, shellfish, shrimp, and in the air samples. we found microplastics in all samples.

Did your Microplastic Tactik have a good impact? 

Not Yet but. Uuuh they're worried, but there hasn't been a big change of people’s dumping trash behaviour. It takes time to make major changes, but at least information about microplastics has become knowledge, the mainstream media has informed about microplastic pollution in breast milk, in human blood, in the lungs. information about microplastics will become a story in coffee shops