Bye Bye Plastic Bags on Bali

You're strolling along the beach in paradise, with the cool waters of the Indian Ocean licking your toes when suddenly you feel something fishy glomming on to your foot. A jellyfish? No, it's garbage. Yuck.

Plastic waste is inundating Bali's famous beaches, collecting in layers among the emerald rice paddies, and chocking river ravines across the island. Two middle school students Melati, age 13, and her sister Isabel, age 11, have started a campaign to put stop to this.

Read more about their campaign.


Bye Bye Plastic Bags is their campaign to raise awareness about the glut of plastic and collect 1 million signatures to put a stop to it. Everyone can use and re-use cloth bags, the girls suggest, which should even be provided to local households and at the airport, where millions of visitors enter the island each year.

Melati and Isabel have initiated a petition to encourage Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika to implement a law banning the use of plastic bags in Bali.

Read and sign the petition.

Melati and Isabel aim to collect 1 million signatures in 2014, and the clock is ticking. They are giving presentations in both English and Bahasa Indonesia about their project in local schools around Bali.

Let's hope the signatures pile up as fast as the plastic bags!