HOW CAN THEATER AND VISUAL ART INFLUENCE ENVIRONMENTAL BEHAVIOR?

Waste is a global concern for all of us. People produce massively more waste than our planet can sustain. Timor-Leste, particularly in Dili, the amount of garbage that people produce is progressively increasing as the population continues to grow. According to the waste assessment conducted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB, 2015), Dili municipality generates 190 tons of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) per day. One of the best management practices (BMPs) used to address an exaggerated amount of MSW - commonly known as garbage - including the installation of 300 brick-and-mortar containers around Dili. The brick-and-mortar containers (locally called bak sampah) are available for households to discard household waste. Unfortunately, there is still lack of environmental awareness in some communities on the impacts of littering, making it difficult to control the amount of waste being dumped in inappropriate locations such as drains, riverside, open space, open areas. Consequently, the inappropriate and irresponsible waste disposal management has caused some negative impacts on the environment and trigger health issues. Filthy and unsanitary environment provides favourable habitat for insects, vermin, and scavenging animals, which then proliferating and spreading air and waterborne diseases. The high influx of rubbish thrown in the river bank eventually end up in the river mouth and pollute the ocean. Plastic waste in particular, takes about 10-20 years to decompose and full decomposition of some plastic products will never be achieved, but instead will only be broken down into smaller pieces. Littering has generated issues related to clogging, inundation, foul odor, air pollution, groundwater contamination, and diseases.

 

Living in an island setting, the Timorese people have a close relationship with the ocean. For centuries, the ocean has always been providing and many generations and sustaining their livelihoods. Its abundance in marine resources has also made Timor-Leste’s water and its reefs (in Atauro) to be one of the most biodiverse in the world in 2016, according to Conservation International (CI) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). However, it has constantly been threat because of anthropocentric causes such as poor waste management, notably plastic waste. In Atauro, the majority of community relies on fishing and growing seaweed to support their lives, however, the increased amount of waste has slowly deteriorated the natural aspect of the beaches, affecting the quality of the coral reefs and marine ecosystem at large. The source of waste, marine debris, including plastic particles found in Timor’s water does not only come locally, but presumably from other neighboring countries carried by the ocean conveyor belt.

 

There is a growing concern over lack in education and environmental awareness in the national population that consist of 41% of people under 30 years of age. Some organizations, however, continue to undertake initiatives for regular beach clean-ups that involve students and local communities. It is often observed that there are minimum initiatives of the Government of Timor-Leste in regard to spreading environmental awareness. Coordination of roles between the government and non-government organizations is critical in pushing the appropriate interventions for waste management, combining education and action-based practices.