27 Dec Should Bali Declare War on Plastic Straws?
Glenn Adams with his daughter Gaia, along with a handful of eco-minded citizens and the Bali Spirit Festival, have banded together to start a campaign to rid all the restaurants, bars, hotels, and Villa’s in Bali of unnecessary plastic straws.
They are calling it: “The Last Straw Campaign”.
“The idea is crazy simple—restaurants either get rid of straws completely or provide a straw only when requested by a customer. If you want a straw, all you have to do is ask. It’s that easy”.
Glenn and Gaia are very excited to have Bali Spirit’s support and have printed 1,000 glass straws with: “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – Balispirit.com” to be given to 100 restaurants. The goal is to have thousands of restaurants, hotels, bars and villas offer reusable straws made of glass, bamboo, or stainless steel instead of plastic ones. They can offer disposable ones like papaya stems as well yet “The Last Straw” is a plastic one.
They ask that eco-minded consumers use only reusable straws and support the campaign by letting restaurants know about the alternatives to plastic straws.
Mr. Adams says, “When you kiss your drink {drink directly from the glass} it tastes better because your lips have a high number of nerve endings. Yet people love drinking from straws and glass straws as well as papaya straws have a high vibration and feel very nice on your lips. They are the best alternative to plastic straws”.
According to Emma Snowden, litter campaigns officer with the Marine Conservation Society: “Plastic is a huge problem for our marine wildlife and makes up over 60 percent of all the litter we find on beaches, particularly single use plastic such as bags. She says that, “Plastic straws make up a small proportion of all this litter, but if everyone took responsibility to dispose of their litter correctly in the first place it would help massively.”
Mr. Adams and his daughter Gaia went to White Sands Beach in Candidasa and took photos of the plastic straws that washed up on the beach. Gaia says, “We collected over 30 straws in less then 10 minutes. I then thought why don’t they use reusable straws? My dad said they probably couldn’t afford them. So I said, why don’t we just buy them and gift each restaurant reusable straws. So we did and had a lot of fun giving away the reusable straws. The owners loved the idea and our blessings for a plastic straw free Bali.”
The Adams family researched the best straws to use and although they love bamboo straws they felt that hygiene was an issue so they chose glass straws that have a stainless steal cleaning brush.
If every restaurant started using reusable straws and having the Last Straw Campaign post card on all the dinning table saying “we do not serve straws unless you ask for one” the reduction of wasteful plastic straws would be very significant.
It’s a new campaign and one that they hope will spread through Bali as well as other islands. This is truly a nice ‘pay-it-forward’ idea.
If you know of any restaurants, hotels, bars, villas, or retail shops that would be interested in supporting this campaign please have them contact www.imaginebali.org Every straw purchase helps support gifting reusable straws to restaurants that cannot afford to buy them.
You can buy these straws in Ubud at Yoga Shop, Down To Earth, The Eco Shop, Clear Café, Zula, Soma, Dayu’s Warung, Radiantly Alive, & Namaste. In the south they are available at Desa Seni Village Resort, Bali Buda, Earth Cafe, Zula, and Biku just to name a few. Buy your own and support this great campaign. Check the website: www.imaginebali.org this great organization has the positive philosophy to reuse, reduce, & recycle making our world a cleaner, better, and healthier place.
By Glenn Adams