Jakarta  /  Fri, March 22, 2019  /  06:34 pm

In May last year, a newly discovered species of beetle in the Maliau Basin in Kalimantan was named Grouvellinus leonardodicaprioi by Taxon Expeditions in appreciation of the actor’s work for the environment. (Shutterstock/Tinseltown)

United States actor Leonardo DiCaprio recently posted a photo of Bantar Gebang landfill in Bekasi, West Java, on his Instagram account, raising concerns about plastic waste and its dangers.

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#Regram #RG @everydayclimatechange: This is Elisabetta Zavoli @elizavola taking over the @everydayclimatechange Instagram account this week and sharing my documentary work of the ‘Landfill midwife’ project. . Some men, from Cikiwul village, catch up fishes in the highly polluted muddy waters that percolate from Bantar Gebang biggest dump zone. Banter Gebang landfill receives the waste of about 15 millions people living in Jakarta. Trash pickers need the litter to make a living and the Indonesian society needs trash pickers to recycle all possible materials that otherwise would be just discarded. . Indonesia, is ranked the second largest plastic polluter in the world behind only China with reports showing that the country produces 187.2 million tonnes of plastic waste each year of which more than 1 million tons leaks into the ocean. Recent studies discovered that as plastics decay, they emit traces of methane and ethylene, two powerful greenhouse gases, and the rate of emission increases with time. The emissions occur when plastic materials are exposed to ambient solar radiation, whether in water or in the air, but in air, emission rates are much higher. Results show that plastics represent a heretofore unrecognized source of climate-relevant trace gases that are expected to increase as more plastic is produced and accumulated in the environment. Polyethylene, used in shopping bags, is the most produced and discarded synthetic polymer globally and was found to be the most prolific emitter of methane and ethylene. It’s estimated that over 8 billion tons of virgin plastic have been produced since 1950, making plastic one of the largest man-made materials on the planet, behind steel and cement. Of that volume, more than half was produced in the last 16 years, amid a global boom in single-use, disposable plastic. Current annual production levels are expected to double in the next 20 years. #everydayclimatechange #climatechange #globalwarming #climatechangeisreal #environment #waste #plasticwaste #plastics #dumpsite #midwife #health #garbage #trash #plasticpollution #Indonesia #Jakarta #childbirth #children #mothers #pregnantwomen

A post shared by Leonardo DiCaprio (@leonardodicaprio) on Mar 14, 2019 at 10:57am PDT

The photo was originally posted by @everydayclimatechange, whose profile reads “a diverse group of photographers from six continents documenting climate change”.

Taken by photographer Elisabetta Zavoli, she called it the “documentary work of the ‘landfill midwife’ project’”.

The first part of the caption read, “Some men, from Cikiwul village, catch fish in the highly polluted muddy waters that percolate from the Bantar Gebang biggest dump zone. Bantar Gebang landfill receives the waste of about 15 million people living in Jakarta. Trash pickers need the litter to make a living and Indonesian society needs trash pickers to recycle all possible materials that otherwise would just be discarded.”

“Indonesia is ranked the second-largest plastic polluter in the world behind only China with reports showing that the country produces 187.2 million tons of plastic waste each year of which more than 1 million tons leaks into the ocean.”

DiCaprio is known for his environmentally conscious efforts, from starting the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation dedicated to supporting various biodiversity-preservation projects to making the Before the Flood documentary in 2016, which focuses on climate change issues.

The documentary featured the Mount Leuser National Park in Aceh, a UNESCO world heritage site that covers thousands of hectares of protected forest in Aceh and North Sumatra, which is endangered because of a high rate of deforestation.

The actor recently became an investor in eco-conscious sneaker Allbirds. 

Leonardo DiCaprio?@LeoDiCaprio

Proud to be an investor in @Allbirds, a company dedicated to creating a more sustainable future by developing new materials and serving as a model for the footwear industry. Learn more: https://www.allbirds.com/pages/our-materials-tree

In May last year, a newly discovered species of beetle in the Maliau Basin in Kalimantan was named Grouvellinus leonardodicaprioi by Taxon Expeditions in appreciation of the actor’s work for the environment.

DiCaprio’s newest film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is set to be released on July 26. Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, it tells the story of Hollywood in the late 1960s. The cast includes Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Damian Lewis, Dakota Fanning and Bruce Dern. (wng)