Conscious of being surrounded by the polluted ocean and of the absence of a functioning waste management system, the inhabitants of the small Moluccan island of Saparua had no choice but to mobilize their own forces and find local solutions to the global environmental problem that affects their daily lives.
Waste Time shows how a diverse group of people from the teacher, the domina, the shop owner to school children take action together and find creative solutions to reduce, reuse and process waste. They are supported in this by Moluccan lessons of the common law, the adat. After all, “if we don’t do it, who will?” is what the traditional guardian of nature, kewang Uncle Eli, sings to us: ‘Sio sapa lae kalo bukang katong dua’.
The documentary Waste Time is part of the film project ‘As You Open Your Eyes’. A series of documentaries and films on various, urgent global themes such as HIV, ageing and pollution.
This is an initiative of the international NGO The Constellation (https://the-constellation.org/) and produced by Visual Development (https://visualdevelopment.media) With these productions, The Constellation wants to show that people themselves, locally can tackle global problems. Waste Time is an example of this. For the recordings in Saparua and for the distribution of the documentary, The Constellation collaborated with the organisation Happy Green Islands Foundation, which creates awareness and stimulates action for solutions around the consequences of single-use plastic.