Students of International Program of Governmental Studies of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (IGOV UMY) and American students performed a beach cleanup in a shore of Baru Beach Bantul on Friday (16/10). “We remove plastic rubbish. It aims at educating them that plastic rubbish cannot be decomposed by soil or it will be decomposed for dozens of years,” conveyed Rachel, a supervisor of American students.

The event was also their concern about environment around Baru Beach since it is a tourism place, “We are happy that we are assisted to clean the rubbish because we are also developing eco-tourism place, yet managing the environment is still quite hard since domestic tourists are still littering,” expressed Mbah Mun, a manager of Baru Beach.

Additionally, there were 11 IGOV students and 11 American students joining the beach cleanup. They worked in pair bringing a trash bag. One of the American students Isabel Enrichio stated that she was glad to engaging in the beach cleanup. She admitted that she had never cared of plastic bags which she used during her shopping in mini markets in Chicago where she lived. Nevertheless, after recognizing that plastic is hard to decompose, she was aware of managing plastic rubbish and the significance of never using the plastic bags at all like bringing her own bag when shopping. “It is important for us to manage all of plastic litters and it is better to reduce plastic bag in our daily life,” she emphasized.

The beach cleanup was a 3-week partnership program between IGOV-UMY’s and American students in Yogyakarta. There were 13 American students and 13 students of IGOV-UMY. They shared information one another and explored Indonesian culture. The partnership program was expected to be one of the ways to internationalize IGOV students so that they can extend their networking.