Say No to Plastic Bags!
I have stayed in Sydney for around 9 months by the time this article is written. As part of my routine, I frequently shop at the supermarket for groceries. As the time goes by, I started to realize that the plastic bags I collected from these grocery shopping have piled up and completely filled one of my drawers. I then realized that it's not a good habit to use disposable thin plastic bags for my groceries. Since then, I always bring my own trolley to avoid having more plastic bags in my room. I knew it's not a wise action to simply dump the bags to the trash bin).
Recently I came across this video on TED. Melati and Isabel Wijsen, two girls in Bali, Indonesia, started a petition and collected signatures to ban plastic bags in Bali. Their initiative was not fully welcomed at first. But with four lessons in mind: team work, outside the box-thinking, persistence, and access to key profiles, they managed to collect one million signature and made the governor of Bali to sign a commitment of making Bali plastic bag free by 2018. Full speech can be watched below.
It is amazing to see how students can make difference. The video made me think how small the contribution I have given so far to make this world a better place. The movement led by these girls in Bali is a great example of how the people's power can bring changes. Maybe for some people, this action means nothing. What's the big deal of not having plastic bags? Well, obviously it's a very big deal for the sake of the environment (and the humanity itself).
Plastic bags are continuously accumulated in Bali's beach (Childs 2014)
By stating that plastic bags have caused very serious impacts on the environment and the humanity, I'm not exaggerating. Plastic bags have been notoriously renowned as being responsible for destroying the ecosystems. It is the global catastrophe of our own making. We dump around 8 millions ton of plastics to the ocean every year (Parker 2015). It's a bad news. However, what worse is that the numerical preponderance of this tonnage is expected to increase tenfold in the next decade if the negative trend continues without any real effort to stop it.
The social movement of these kids in Bali gives us a glimpse of hope. However, it should not stop here. We need to spread the words to influence other parts of the world to do the same. We can start by stop using plastic bags for our grocery shopping and ask for our friends to do the same. It's the least thing we can do though.
References:
Childs, J 2014, digital image, in Gray, S 2014, 'One Million Signatures to Rid Bali of Plastic Bags',
Our campaign to ban plastic bags in Bali, 2015, online video, accessed 17 March 2016,
Parker, L 2015, 'Eight Million Tons of Plastic Dumped in Ocean Every Year', National Geographic, 13 February,
