Plastic bags are becoming a serious problem around the world. Plastic bags are widely uses and provided for free by supermarkets, minimarts and other commercial businesses, in Bali. But, they often end up littered anywhere. I think all of you know what the bad effects of plastic bags for environment are. In developing country like Indonesia, you can easily find plastic bags on the streets and pile up in drains causing water clogging and flood. They are also non-biodegradable and polluting water, land, and sea.

Bali, a popular international tourist destination suffers from plastic rubbish. A good waste management system can be solution for this problem. But what vital is the number of plastic that people littered everyday. If we cannot rely on waste management without try to reduce the use of plastic bags, it will useless. It is so much better, if we can reduce the use of plastic itself.

There is a campaign in Bali called Bye Bye Plastic Bag (BBPB). This initiative was founded by Melati and Isabel Wijsen in late 2013. It consists of youngsters between 10 and 15 years old who are committed to preserving the beauty of Bali by banning plastic bags. Now BBPB has grown to 25 dedicated children, with more joining each day. These children, from different schools and nationalities, are volunteering to make Bali plastic bag free. They have set a petition to entirely ban plastic bags in Bali.  The founders of Bye Bye Plastic Bags has met with Bapak Mangku Pastika, the Governor of Bali and signed together an MOU to minimize the use and to help asking the community of Bali to say NO to plastic bags on Bali by January 1st 2016. He said that if the initiative succeeded to raise one million signatures, he would ban the manufacture, distribution and use of plastic bags on Bali. Help them reach this goal and create precedence, a model for all tourism destinations so that tourism becomes an actor of positive change.

Last Wednesday, on December 10th 2014, BBPB held a conference/workshop about their campaign. Bye-Bye Plastic Bags is a social initiative driven by local and international children living in Bali who are trying to ban the use, sale and production of plastic bags in Bali. The conference was attended and supported by many institutions, businesses and organizations, such as United Nation REDD+ Coordinations, Greenschool (Jalan-Jalan Group), Eco Bali, Bali International School (B.I.S), WWF Indonesia, Earth Hour, Bali TV, Ripcurl, Surfer Girl, Taman Hidup Bali, Coca Cola, Sustainable Solutions, and many more. BBPB were also invited local students in Bali. Furthermore, BBPB want to join forces with youths, organizations and businesses to make this really happen for Bali.  We are working for a greener and cleaner Bali. We need preserve Bali beautiful environment for future generations. TOGEHTER we can do this!

For more information about BBPB, please see on http://www.byebyeplasticbags.com/

We are here to make a change! Help us to get Bali plastic bag free, sign our petition on http://www.avaaz.org/plasticbali