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On October 6, 16 students enrolled in the Asian Tourism Development course offered by the School of Economics participated in “Bali Recycle 2019” at the beaches and roads near the popular Beachwalk Shopping Center. A total of 339 people, consisting of students from Udanaya University and other local universities, local elementary school students, media members and others, participated in the cleanup and collected a total of 201.2 kg of trash.

Bali Recycle 2019, organized in conjunction with Udanaya University, aims to beautify the island’s beaches and have local residents understand the importance of sorting trash. Last year, the cleanup project was mainly carried out by students from the seminar of Professor Kyosuke Kurita of the School of Economics. Prof. Kurita’s seminar students continued the tradition this year, and planned and organized the cleanup project. This year, the group was able to successfully secure the cooperation of even more local businesses than last year, and original “Bali Recycle 2019” T-shirts from the popular Bali Tees brand, as well as garbage bags from Avani that are made without plastic, were distributed to the participants.

The cleanup began at 7 AM. The elementary school students who participated took care of the beach, while the adults took care of the roads. The children competed to pick up trash, and the participants enjoyed themselves while enthusiastically cleaning up the roads. Before the actual Bali Recycle 2019 cleanups, the School of Economics students and Udanaya University students visited local elementary schools and taught the children about topics like “the garbage problem of Bali and the world,” and “how to protect the environment.” The classes inspired some elementary school students to participate in the cleanups. Prof. Kurita plans to continue the Bali Recycle program and school visits next year, as well.

The aim of the Asian Tourism Development program is for students to contribute to the sustainable development of Bali, as well as the development of its tourism industry, and work to actively solve problems while they are on the island. They gather information from more than a thousand tourists over the course of a month, and assist Japanese teachers in local schools, intern at hotels and airline agencies, among other activities, and also make reports about their surveys and internship results.