These two girls saw a problem that needed to be fixed. So they’re fixing it.
I’m currently sitting with my feet up on a balcony in Bali. I have a belly full of Bintang, a sunburn like I flew too close to the sun, and although it’s 8 o’clock at night, I’m so sweaty it’s like I just got out of the water. It is paradise. But there’s a huge problem in paradise: plastic.
Right now, Bali produces almost 700 cubic meters of plastic garbage a day. Everyone knows about it; Indonesia’s plastic problem has been well-documented. It is everywhere. Plastic bags drift around the streets like tumbleweeds, lining the road sides and caught up in fences. The sand seems to be almost equal parts plastic and sand, and the ocean surrounding these islands, in all of its vastness, is so full of our toxic offal that it is impossible to miss. Piles of burning plastic dot the landscape here and there, releasing dioxins into the atmosphere. There’s no real system in place to deal with it, and it will only keep getting worse unless something is done about it. And two young women are taking very large steps to tackle the problem.
Melati and Isabel Wijsen aren’t even 16 yet, but they’ve started a movement. A few years ago, they founded Bye Bye Plastic Bags, “a social initiative driven by children, between ages 11 to 17 years.” Along with a few other world-changers, the girls are on a mission to get plastic bags completely banned on Bali by 2018.
Back in September of 2015, they traveled to London to participate in a Ted Talk. They spent the time telling the audience about their quest to find a solution to the issues plaguing their home–and their speech was received very, very well.
So far, they’ve been relentlessly campaigning, raising awareness through a hunger strike, doing countless beach cleanups, and petitioning all over the island. And recently, it paid off: the governor has committed to a plastic bag-free Bali by 2018.
The young ladies have been trekking all over the world spreading the word. They’ll be speaking at the Ocean Plastic Pollution Summit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in a few days, and they just finished a five day trip to Jakarta, where they met with Bapak Suarjana, the Head of Environment. “He tells us the next big date is June 5th, where there will be an evaluation of the paying for plastics policy to define what the collected money should be used for,” they said. As well as their meeting with Suarjana, they met with Angkasa Pura Airports’ General Manager. “The outcome is that we have their 100% support,” said the girls. “They are officially Bye Bye Plastic Bags number one believers.”
If all goes well–and by the looks of the progress they’ve made so far, all will go well–the Bye Bye Plastic Bags movement will catch on. Bali is beautiful, and plastic is ruining it. Melati and Isabel Wijsen saw that something needed to be done, and they’re doing something.
