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"My waste, my responsibility": It’s time to act!
👋 Hi everyone, it’s Alex for another story; how are you all?
I’m going to be honest: I’m angry.
Everywhere I walk here and elsewhere, I see the same thing: whole bags of waste thrown without any qualms into rivers, forests, waterways. Thousands a day. And what breaks me the most is not just this tide of plastic that invades everything. It’s the total indifference of an immense majority of people.
People don’t care. It doesn’t even cross their minds. They throw it away, burn it, forget it. It makes me cry. Because while I feel this pain, this waste, they continue as if it were nothing.
And the authorities—this band of corrupt incompetents—they don’t do anything either. There is no education, no awareness in schools, nothing to explain that this waste ends up contaminating the water we drink, clogging the soil where we grow the fruits and vegetables we eat, and releasing toxic fumes when it burns.
So, Fair Future, Fair Future, and I decided not to just watch like idiots.
In March 2025, we are launching a major campaign: "My waste, my responsibility." This education and action program will be a pillar of our Primary Medical Care program because waste management is a public health problem first and foremost.
Throw away, burn, breathe... and get sick!
Plastic and waste are not just an environmental problem. They kill.
🔥 Burning waste - Here, it's the default solution. But when we burn plastic, we release toxins that infiltrate the air into the lungs of children and cause asthma, respiratory infections, and cancers. Every day, I see these black smokes rising above the villages.
💧 Polluting water – In Sumba where we work, clean water is already rare (we are not talking about drinking water here). But when we throw waste into the rivers, we contaminate the last available sources.
Result? Diarrhea, skin diseases, parasitic infections, infectious diseases, Malaria, cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid fever and polio...
🌱 Degrading the soil – When waste accumulates in the fields, it prevents the soil from breathing. Crops become less fertile, and floods more frequent.
The figure is staggering: The figure is staggering: Imagine more than 9 million premature deaths per year due to pollution. Three times more than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined.
We choose action!
With Kawan Sehat health workers and all our volunteers, we go to the villages to explain, show and teach. We have created an awareness poster (see here or below), printed on paper and mostly on fabric, which will go from house to house, from school to school. Because if the governement does not educate, then we will.
We also teach alternatives:
1. Recycle and reuse instead of burning;
2. Stop throwing in nature, rivers, lakes;
3. Teach children to manage waste differently;
4. Separate organic and non-organic waste:
5. Reuse and repair as much as possible;
6. Install and use community bins;
....
It's not too late, but it's really urgent!
The real fight is not just to clean up; if we don't fix the leak, the water will continue to flow! It's a change of mentality. It's time to act, raise awareness, and give ourselves the means to make people and politicians understand that disaster is imminent.
Do you want to help? Share this message. Talk about it around you.
Because each of us has a responsibility, no one else will if we don't do something.
☑️ Discover our poster here in large format and join the movement here.
☑️ Read the article about it, which explains this new campaign.
☑️ See all the other campaigns (eight) here by clicking on this link.
See you soon. Alex Wettstein |
