Kicking the Plastic Habit

I have been battling this addiction for a while now, and I must admit to the occasional relapse. Just when I think that I have finally taken full control of my weakness, it sneaks up on me and there I am at the check-out counter, incriminating evidence in hand.

And yet I know that plastic bags are the scourge of the modern world. They pollute and kill. So here’s my newfound commitment – plastic bags and I are finished. But what will it take to put paid to plastic? 

What’s the issue?
Chances are you are familiar with the sight. Colorful shreds of plastic, tumble-weeding their way gracefully through streets. Wreathing artistic garlands in branches, swaying in the wind. Or floating away in the deep blue sea, displaying the logo of a retailer to perplexed squid and mackerel.

The real impacts are serious. Anywhere between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed around the world each year. Once they are thrown out, it takes months to hundreds of years for plastic bags to disintegrate, sending tiny toxic chemical elements into soils, lakes, rivers, and the oceans. Marine turtles think plastic bags look like jellyfish, so they eat them, which blocks their stomach and often kills them over time. 

Kicking the plastic bag habit
Plastic bags have the habit of making themselves forcibly ubiquitous in our lives. And by virtue of being everywhere, they have made us completely dependent on them. Meanwhile, the environmental destruction rages on. So what are we up against if we draw the line on their use?

Disbelief, for starters. When I tell the check-out clerk I don’t want a bag, I usually have to do so a few times – first to convince myself that I mean it, then to make the clerk understand I really mean it.

This is the proud moment where I proceed to draw out my oversized, flat-bottomed cloth bag and start placing my purchases inside. By the time I have checked out, I have usually saved the equivalent of 3 plastic bags, and gotten the attention of quite a few perplexed ibu-ibu. But it’s worth it.

Assuming you shop about twice a week, 4 times a month, and 10 months a year (leaving out holidays and the days you forget to bring your own bag), you could avoid using 240 bags in one year. If 100 people do this, that’s 24,000 bags!

But not getting those precious bags at the supermarket creates a new problem back at home. If you’re one of those people using Hero or Carrefour plastic bags to line waste-bins, you’re suddenly short of plastic fodder. Fortunately, a proactive organization called DML sells biodegradable bags that consist of 20 percent cassava flour and degrade in about three years. That might not solve the flooding problems in Jakarta but it’s still a major improvement on the old-school plastic bags.

+ Marc-Antoine Dunais

How to do it
1.      For your shopping needs, get yourself a large, sturdy cloth or fiber bag that you feel comfortable carrying around. Carrefour sells large bags for Rp 10,000/piece which you can re-use. Buy 10 and give them to your friends and relatives.
2.      Can’t say goodbye to the plastic bag? Buy the eco-friendly alternative! DMLS’s biodegradable bags are attractively priced at Rp 1,500 for 35. Just call 21-724 8884 or visit www.dml.or.id to place an order.  
3.      Avoid superfluous wrapping. Honestly, does a bunch of bananas need to be wrapped when nature has endowed these delightful fruits with such an efficient protective layer?

And you can take your newfound love of recycled bags one step further. The XSProject in Jakarta buys plastic consumer waste from Jakarta’s trash pickers, providing them with extra income. Working together with other foundations and small cottage industries, the waste is then transformed into functional accessories. Find out about them at http://xscatalog.blogspot.com/.

About greenLifestyle: GL is a mailing list to share information and tips on greening your lifestyle in Indonesia’s cities. How to save on utility bills? Where to recycle paper in Java and Bali? Reducing the amount of water you use at home? All legit questions can be sent (in Indonesian or English) to greenLifestyle@googlegroups.com.

Random Non Sequiturs

Adrian Darmono gives his random ravings on the meaning of life.

1. The more respectable and prominent an Indonesian family is, the more skeletons are squeezed tightly in their closet.

2. Move to Jakarta once in your life.  Leave before you find it perfectly acceptable for a radio station to call itself “Hard Rock FM” and play Celine Dion.

3. Now let me get this clear:  You wouldn’t go near durian, and yet you’ll eat blue cheese?

4. After three and a half centuries of struggle, Indonesia declared its independence 11 days after the U.S. dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima.  You do the math.

5. The tip of your tie should fall at the exact center of your belt.  Any shorter and you look like a clown, any longer and it looks like you are desperately compensating.

6. You know you're a "Bule with a Mission" if you have Phillip Glass, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan or Youssou N'Dour on your iPod.

7. Malaysia: Truly Indonesia

8. Even when 34A fits better, they will always wear 34B.  Trust me on this one.

9.  “Kan tergantung merek BH-nya!”  (“Well, it depends on the brand of the bra”) Yeah, go ahead and tell yourself that.

10. The only thing worse than movies about artists?  Movies about writers.  And even worse than that?  Movies about writers without a substance abuse problem.  

11. Ayam Negeri: The same, only with desk jobs.

12. I don't care what they say, watching a documentary is just as good as reading a book on the subject.

13. Move to Jakarta once in your life.  Leave before you find it perfectly acceptable to own the latest Nokia Communicator and just use it to make calls, send SMS and giggle over .3gp clips.

14. At the end of the day, it really does come down to this:  Marry the one person you love having conversations with.  The sex won't be that great after you are 60 anyway.

15. When a woman says "We need to talk", what she really means is:  "I talk, you listen.  Any lip from you and I swear I will go Oprah all over your sorry ass, so help you God."

16. "Pembokatus Interruptus" … When the maid walks in.

17. One of the first things you learn when you work in the fashion industry is that “beauty” and “attractiveness” are two very different things.

18. Many Indonesians get married out of fear, not because of love.  Fear of parents, relatives, society, being alone, financial insecurity and the ticking clock.

19. Yes, I realize buying pirated movies and music is wrong.  But after watching “MTV Cribs”, I simply stopped caring.  If you can sit on the toilet, press a button and a 55” HDTV rises from your bathroom floor, you don’t need my measly rupiah. 

20. Real men don’t eat rujak.  Or quiche, for that matter.

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