To the Beach!
So today I went to the beach. That would be a normal thing, except today I was invited. I was asked to be there around 5:30 PM. I was invited by a local person in the community to witness the collection of firewood and wood for recycling.
This was interesting to me because I always wondered what happened to all the wood that washed up on the beach. We had a very large storm a few days ago and the beach was absolutely littered with wood.
Collection and Sales.
Logs and branches have washed up on the beach where they will be collected and recycled. Shipped off to a place called Gianyar in Bali. Here the wood is recycled into furniture, decorations, restaurants, as well as small carvings. What was interesting about the experience was that the community gets together and collects the wood. What was even more interesting was that they collect and sell by weight. The recycling program benefits the community and individuals.
Every family has its own piles of wood. These piles are left on the beach and anybody can take them but there’s no worry about stealing or cheating. The beach is cleaned by the locals. It’s their beach, not the government.
A Family Event.
Families gather and involve the kids in the clean-up and recycling. Sorted, roughly by size, and of course, the bigger the pieces are worth more.
Having been to many beaches I have seen this collection of wood with tractors and individuals. However, I have never witnessed a public beach cleaned up by community members. The interesting thing was that this community gathering brings families together. Along with the kids and neighbors, they all participate in this massive clean-up of washed-up deadwood debris. The rivers carry them downstream into the ocean, and the ocean then pushes them back onto the beach. The beach tends to look dirty, and the clean-up never stops, the community always has a place to gather.
Zsolt Zsemba 