Every 60 seconds, 1 million single-use plastic bags are used worldwide. The students of this service club at Jakarta Intercultural School have fought to ban them in Jakarta in 2019.
Jakarta-based students; Cagla and I decided to become leaders of the plastic movement on campus after being poached by Ms. Muyard, a teacher passionate about Indonesia's plastic issues. Working side by side, we reformed Bye Bye Plastic Bags Jakarta at JIS and, in the years since, have mobilized kids like us to help save the environment around us. Back in 2018, the service club, Project Earth, was split into two groups. One, working on advancing its focus on school issues, while the other worked on ways to adjust the plastic usage at our host city. Since then, Bye Bye Plastic Bags has grown from a small brainstorming group to a club conducting change one bag at a time.
Originating from Bali, Indonesia, BBPB was founded by two sisters, Melati and Isabel Wijsen, at the age of 12 and 13, who strived to make their home plastic free. After four years of traveling around the world, spreading their message, and working with the government, they finally reached their goal to ban the use of plastic bags in Bali by early 2019. Leading by example, the girls launched multiple projects such as Pilot Village and the Educational Booklet, where the girls encourage and raise awareness about the issue in local villages on the island of Bali. Learning this, we've decided to strive for the same purpose, but here in Jakarta.
Taking inspiration from the Wijsen sisters, we decided to strive for change in Jakarta. If a ban could be emplaced in Bali, why couldn't the same be done here? Thus, we got to work creating strong partnerships with fellow green NGOs providing alternatives to single-use plastics. As reform cannot be conducted without giving options. Consequently, this allowed us to earn the opportunity to work with the Ministry of Maritime Affairs in late 2018 in their political strive mission to reform Indonesia and reduce the plastics entering its oceans.
Although we expect the meeting to cause a mere conversation on the issue, a plastic bag tax was emplaced in Jakarta supermarkets in early 2019. An essential step caused the supermarket chain Papaya to implement a Rp 200 - Rp 500 charge, which reduced plastic bags by 50%, according to the supermarket chain. However, this led to a rise in civil unrest with children our age taking to the streets to strike to bring action to our planet's rising climate. On social media, the youth questioned the government's reasoning for not taking the leap to ban plastic bags, such as Bali did months prior. This caused a ban to enter the legislature. In December 2019, plastic bags were said to be entirely banned in the city by July 2020.
Now, at the beginning of 2021, we, as a service club, can say we have successfully accomplished our mission and vision to ban plastic bags in Jakarta. Moreover, with Covid-19, there was an exponential decline in the amount of plastic bags being used. Communities became more environmentally friendly through reusable shopping bags, and the city's environments changed for the better as a cause of this. Sadly, now with a pandemic amidst us, a new form of pollutants has entered our environments and harms animals. PPE, Personal Protective Equipment, has been the manner to protect ourselves and those around us from the virus. However, with improper disposal, materials such as our masks and gloves have harmed wildlife worldwide. A focus our club would now like to shift and focus towards.
With the pandemic causing various shifts in our daily lives and especially the means we now learn in, service has found multiple ways to thrive through our houses' confinements. Our enthusiasm and determination know no bounds and are only growing. We believe our mission is no longer only to improve Jakarta's conditions but also to help communities around us during these dire times. Moreover, inspire other enterprising teenagers to stand up for what they believe in, no matter how large the goal. Because we did it, one plastic bag at a time.
Comments