Can you imagine Bali without plastic bags? If you’ve ever been here, then it seems more likely that the island will be covered by the hectare in the environmentally atrocious stuff before being rid of them, as the bags are just everywhere.
Thankfully the younger generation is more optimistic—Green School students Melati and Isabel Wijsen have imagined what our island would be like plastic-bag free and have spent nearly three years putting the commendable goal into action.
A video was just released of a TED Talk the two sisters gave in London back in September, detailing how they have put their vision to work in the form of a campaign called “Bye Bye Plastic Bags,” that they impressively said they started when they were just 10 and 12 years old.
From going on a modified “hunger strike” to working their way through the airport administration’s bureaucracy to get access to the millions of travelers going through Bali’s airport each year to sign their petition, the Wijsen sisters show us just how persistent a couple of “kids” can be.
Oh, and their hard work has apparently paid off—they say Governor Made Mangku Pastika has recently committed to a ban by 2018. Let’s just hope they hold him to it!
Watch the full talk here:
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