'It's easy to ignore plastic pollution until you see it right in front of you.'

It's no secret our oceans are full of plastic.

Research tells us 11 million tonnes of plastic enter the world's oceans each year. And that's estimated to triple to 29 million tonnes by 2040, if no action is taken. 

It's a staggering statistic – but one that's hard to visualise reading on a screen.

It wasn't until I was standing in the fishing village of Air Gelubi in Indonesia that the numbers started sinking in. 

Watch: Seven Clean Seas and Not Soda clean up plastic pollution in Air Gelubi, Indonesia. Post continues below.

The village has one of the highest levels of environmental plastic waste leakage globally, a statement that is verified as soon as you step off the boat.

A few metres down the jetty, I was met with colourful piles of rubbish, so dense that it was blanketing sections of the water in between people's homes.

The further I walked around the village, the worse it became. 

Plastic bags, food wrappers, textiles, rope, containers. It was everywhere. 

One of most obvious suspects? Plastic bottles. 

They were floating in the water children were playing in and buried in the dirt behind them after being washed up on shore.

Image: Supplied/Not Soda/Rob Brown. 

When you consider the statistics, it shouldn't come as any surprise. 

Some of the world’s biggest soft drink companies have been named as the worst polluters around the globe. That's why Didi Lo, the founder of Australian impact-led drinks brand Lo Bros Not Soda, believes soft drink companies have a responsibility to do their part. 

"35 billion [plastic] bottles a year enter into rivers and oceans. It's pollution on such a mass scale that you can't even understand it," he told Mamamia. 

"[Soft drink companies] have to acknowledge that putting something in a single-use container, even if it can be recycled, is not sustainable. We have an obligation to make sure that we're cleaning up more mess than we're actually creating, otherwise, it's never going to end well."

In an effort to turn the tide on plastic pollution, Not Soda have teamed up with Seven Clean Seas to tidy up the ocean. The 'how' is simple – with every can of their zero-sugar soft drink sold, the equivalent weight of two plastic bottles is removed from the water. 

"We realised there's actually no one in the beverage industry doing anything about plastic waste, it was so clear that we had to clean up the oceans," said Lo. 

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Walking around Air Gelubi, it was obvious how desperately this work is needed. 

In under 30 minutes, Seven Clean Seas workers had filled multiple bags of rubbish that had been removed not just from the water and its ecosystem but the surrounding environment the local community of Air Gelubi call home. 

Image: Supplied.

Seven Clean Seas co-founder, Tom Peacock-Nazil, says the time to take action is now, with current levels of plastic pollution "so incredibly dire".

"If we sit on our hands and we don't take action, it's an unstoppable freight train driving right for the cliff," he told Mamamia. "We are at the precipice of not being able to fix this. It isn't like our technology is going to fix this in five or 10 years, this problem is going to be around for a couple of decades minimum."

"We really need to take immediate action. It is easy when you're in a more fortunate position and you're looking out at a window, and there's a [garbage] man and a bin and [your rubbish] gets taken away... and it doesn't leak into the environment, as far as you know, it goes out of your vision. But the vast majority of the world isn't in that privileged position."

Instead, organisations like Seven Clean Seas, in partnership with Not Soda, are on the ground doing the hard work. 

Once Seven Clean Seas collects plastic from sites like Air Gelubi, it is taken to their Materials Recovery Facility in Bintan, where it is sorted, cleaned and separated. 

Seven Clean Seas employees separating labels from plastic bottles at the Materials Recovery Facility in Bintan. Image: Supplied.

During the process, bottles are compacted into bales, which can be recycled, repurposed or sent for secondary processing, allowing them to be used in multiple ways including in the production of bricks. 

The facility processes 30,000kg of plastic a month, with one bale comprising of 30 to 50kg of bottles.

Plastic is sorted into different categories including PET bottles and HDPE bottle caps. It can take one week to produce one to two bales. Image: Supplied. 

So far, Not Soda's cleanup efforts have removed the equivalent weight of one million plastic bottles from the ocean and they have committed to removing five million plastic bottles by 2025. 

"I think five million is way too small a number if I'm really honest," said Lo. "We feel so confident we're going smash that number."

Their cleanup initiative has also provided over 60 local families with employment and fair working conditions.

Since arriving back home, I can no longer look at the soft drink aisle at my local supermarket the same way again.

While it's sobering to picture the number of plastic bottles that find their way into the ocean each year, I feel empowered as a consumer that I can do my part, even 4,000km away in Australia. 

Whether it be the food and drink industry, or fashion and beauty, money talks and we can have a big influence on brands and the impact they leave on our environment. 

As Lo put it, "We can't recycle our way out of this mess, we have to do something about it."

The investigative trip attended by this writer was facilitated by Lo bros Not Soda and organised by The Bravery Is Here.

Feature Image: Supplied.

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