A question I am always asked by groups who come to Bali (usually on the next-to-last-day of the course, when they just can't contain themselves any longer) is why is there so much litter in Bali? The Balinese have such a natural feng shui ability when it comes to architecture and landscaping, so how is it they can comfortably live with litter all over the place, such as this little pile I saw beside the road on my morning walk today? -->

Well, first of all, the groups I bring to Bali see more litter than other groups because I take them to rural areas many other visitors never go to. If you stay in the main tourist areas, they make an effort to keep the streets clean. But in the villages (and in highly populated cities), it's true there is a problem.

One day when I was travelling around Bali with a Balinese driver, I asked him about this. As we were driving along, I asked, "What do you see?"

"I see trees,' he replied. "Banana trees and coconut trees."

"What else?"

"People, dogs, chickens, houses, cars, motor bikes, temples, goats, rice fields, mountains..."

The list continued as we travelled along but he never mentioned any of the litter strewn on either side of the road.

Finally I asked, "What do you see on the ground?"

He looked around and said, in his broken English, "I see pretty."

"Pretty?"

"Yes, pretty colours. Nice looking. More interesting than banana leaf."

I adjusted my stance from Western to Balinese and was suddenly able to see it as he did. We have a very astral way of looking. Our vision jars when we see objects we perceive as not belonging in a natural environment. But for the Balinese, who are much more etherically based, they see litter as pleasing to the eye, adding colour and variety of texture. Blissfully uneducated to the health risks of litter, they happily live with it, considering it an enhancement of the environment rather than an eyesore.

If you go back a few decades, there were no packaged goods, plastic bags or plastic bottles in Bali. They would wrap their food in a banana leaf to keep it fresh, eat it off the banana leaf with their fingers, and then throw the leaf over their shoulder, where it would easily biodegrade in a matter of weeks in the tropical humidity. But modern packaging and tourism has changed that a lot and the education they receive hasn't kept up-to-date.

Thankfully there are now some western people who have instigated 'clean up Bali' projects, such as the 'Say No To Plastic!' campaign that was launched last month in Ubud, a tourist area in the centre of the island. But in the villages, the problem continues, and in the highly urbanized areas, it's chronic. 

So this is the explanation I give to people who ask, and while I still don't condone the practice of littering, it does help to understand why they do it. In the hotel I built in Bali it was a constant battle for years to teach the staff to keep the gardens and pathways litter-free, because at heart they really didn't see the need. They still think of cleaning up litter as assuaging western neuroticism, bless 'em, but they do it because they like to keep us happy.

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