Melati Wijsen: Bali ...
Island of Gods.
A green paradise ...
or, a paradise lost.
Bali ...
island of garbage.
Isabel Wijsen: In Bali,
we generate 680 cubic meters of plastic garbage a day.
That's about a 14-story building.
And when it comes to plastic bags,
less than five percent gets recycled.
MW: We know that changes the image you may have of our island.
It changed ours, too when we learned about it.
When we learned that almost all plastic bags in Bali
that almost all plastic bags in Bali end up in our drains
and then in our rivers,
and then in our ocean.
And those that don't even make it to the ocean,
they're either burned out littered.
IW: So we decided to do something about it.
And we've been working for almost three years now
to try to say no to plastic bags on our home island,
and we have had some significant successes.
MW: We are sisters
and we go to the best school on Earth.
Green School, Bali.
Green School is not only different
in the way that it is built out of bamboo,
but also in the way that it teaches.
We are taught to become leaders of today.
Something a normal textbook cannot match.
IW: One day we had a lesson in class
where we learned about significant people,
like Nelson Mandela,
Lady Diana
and Mahatma Gandhi.
Walking home that day,
we agreed that we also wanted to be significant.
Why should we wait until we were grown up to be significant?
We wanted to do something now.
MW: Sitting on the sofa that night,
we brainstormed and thought of all the issues facing Bali.
And the one thing that stood out to us the most
was the plastic garbage.
But that is a huge problem.
So we looked into what was a realistic target for us kids.
Plastic bags.
And the idea was born.
IW: We started researching ...
and let's just say,
the more we learnt there was nothing good about plastic bags.
And you know what?
We don't even need them.
MW: We were really inspired
by the efforts to say no to plastic bags in many other places.
From Hawaii to Rawanda,
and to severals cities like Oakland and Dublin.
IW: And so the idea turned into the launch of Bye Bye Plastic Bags.
MW: In the years that we have been campaigning
we have learned a lot.
Lesson number one:
you cannot do it all by yourself.
You need a big team of like-minded kids,
and so we formed the Bye Bye Plastic Bags crew.
The volunteer team includes children from all over the island,
from both international and local schools.
And together with them,
we started a multi-layered approach
based on an on and offline signature petition,
educational and inspirational presentations at schools,
we raised general awareness at markets, festivals, beach clean-ups,
and last but not least,
we distributed alternative bags.
Bags like net bags,
recycled newspaper bags,
or 100 percent organic material bags,
all made by local initiatives on the island.
IW: We run a pilot village,
home of 800 families.
The village mayor was our first friend
and he loved our T-shirt,
so that helped.
We focused on making the customers aware
because that's where the change needs to happen.
The village is already two-thirds along the way
of becoming plastic bag-free.
Our first attempts to get the government of Bali on board failed.
So we thought,
"Hm ... a petition with one million signatures,
they can't ignore us," right?
MW: Right.
IW: But who would have guessed
one million signatures is like a thousand times a thousand?
(Laughter)
We got stuck ...
until we learned lesson number two.
Think outside the box.
Someone mentioned that the Bali airport
handles 16 million arrivals and departures a year.
MW: But how do we get into the airport?
And here comes lesson number three.
Persistence.
Off we headed to the airport.
We got past the janitor.
And then it was his boss' boss,
and then the assistant office manager,
and then the office manager,
and then ...
we got shuffled down two levels and thought,
well ... here comes the janitor again.
And after several days of knocking on doors
and just being kids on a mission,
we finally got to the commercial manager of Bali airports.
And we gave him the [bio?] plastic bags speech
and being a very nice man he said,
"I cannot believe what I'm about say,
but I'm going to give authorization
to collect signatures behind customs and immigrations."
(Laughter)
(Applause)
IW: In our first hour and a half there,
we got almost 1,000 signatures.
How cool is that?
Lesson number four:
you need champions at all levels of society.
From students to commercial managers to famous people.
And thanks to the attraction of Green School,
we had access to a steady stream of celebrities.
Ban Ki Moon taught us
that secretary generals of the United Nations don't sign petitions.
(Laughter)
Even if kids ask nicely.
But he promised to spread the word
and now we work closely with the United Nations.
MW: Jane Goodall taught us the power of a people's network.
She started with just one Roots & Shoots group
and now she has 4,000 groups around the world.
We are one of them.
She's a real inspiration.
If you're a fellow Rotarian,
nice to meet you.
We're Interactors,
the youngest department of Rotary International.
IW: But we have also learned much about patience,
MW: how to deal with frustrations,
IW: leadership,
MW: teamwork,
IW: friendship,
MW: we learned more about Balinese and their culture
IW: and we learned about the importance of commitment.
MW: It's not always easy.
Sometimes it does get a little bit hard to walk your talk.
IW: But last year we did exactly that.
We went to India to give a talk
and our parents took us to visit
the former private house of Mahatma Ghandi.
We learned about the power
of hunger strikes he did to reach his goals.
Yes, by the end of the tour,
when we met our parents again,
we both made a decision and said,
"We're going on a hunger strike."
(Laughter)
MW: And you can probably imagine their faces.
It took a lot of convincing.
And not only to our parents,
but to our friends and to our teachers as well.
Isabel and I were serious about doing this.
So we met with a nutritionist
and we came up with a compromise
of not eating from sunrise to sunset every day
until the governor of Bali would agree to meet with us
to talk about how to stop plastic bags on Bali.
IW: Our mogak makam,
as it is called in Bahasa Indonesia,
started.
We used social media to support our goal
and already on day two,
police started to come to our home and school.
What were these two girls doing?
We knew we weren't making the governor look his best
by doing this food strike.
We could have gone to jail.
But, hey ...
it worked.
24 hours later,
we were picked up from school
and escorted to the office of the governor.
MW: And there he was --
(Applause)
waiting for us to meet and speak,
being all supportive
and thankful for out willingness
to care for the beauty and the environment of Bali.
He signed a promise
to help the people of Bali say no to plastic bags.
And we are now friends,
and on a regular basis,
we remind him and his team of the promises he has made.
And indeed,
recently he stated and committed that Bali will be plastic free by 2018.
(Applause)
IW: Also at the International iIrport of Bali,
one of our supporters,
is planning to start a plastic bag-free policy by 2016.
MW: Stop handing out free plastic bags,
and bringing your own reusable bag
is our next message to change that mindset of the public.
IW: Our short term campaign,
One Island One Voice,
is all about this.
We check and recognize the shops and restaurants
that have declared themselves a plastic bag-free zone
and we put this sticker at their entrance
and publish their names on social media and some important magazines on Bali.