The Trash Hero Malaysia network is growing, from four locations in 2017 to more than 20 active today. Let’s hear from the young leaders of one of our newest chapters, Trash Hero Bintulu!
“Last Sunday, our co-leader Jiki was invited as one of the speakers during Bintulu Townhall 2019. During the event we spoke about “Plastic Pollution and How Zero Waste Can Beat This Crisis.” We are immensely thankful to BDA for the opportunity to share with the people of Bintulu.
“We also received a certificate of appreciation for our participation during Gotong-Royong for Hari Sarawak 2019 – the certificate is dedicated to all heroes who joined us during the Cleanup.”
Every week, Trash Hero chapters clean, educate and drive change in their local communities. Every chapter is run by volunteers. Join us or support us today!
Our Trash Hero chapter in Langsuan, Chumphon Province, Thailand, has come up with an ingenious scheme to motivate local residents to separate and recycle their waste.
In an area with no waste management infrastructure – not even basic garbage collection – most households either dump or openly burn their trash, as they have done for generations. The difference, of course, is that 20 – 30 years ago, the waste was mainly biodegradable. Now, the majority is toxic plastic.
Working together with sub-district adminstrations; local schools; hospitals; private sector representatives; and a local temple, our Trash Hero volunteers created a “waste bank” scheme, launched at an official ceremony on 24 June 2019.
Communal life in this mainly rural area is focused around Wat Ratchaburana, a royal monastery in Tha Maphla sub-district. So the headquarters of the “waste bank” is located here. With the support of the Abbot and the resident monks, the local villagers can bring their separated waste to the temple, or to 9 other collection points – one in each village in the district. Organic waste will be used to make biogas and fertiliser; cleaned plastic will be recycled, with all proceeds going to the temple.
A typical “waste bank”, such as those found in Indonesia, incentivises recycling through personal financial gain. People are encouraged to make “deposits” of their recyclable waste at a central location. Each type of waste carries a market value and is exchanged for a fixed rate. The waste bank administration then sells this trash on to local recyclers and places the income received (minus a small admin fee for running costs) into each person’s account. Records are kept in a “bank book” and withdrawals are allowed at any time.
In Langsuan, this concept has been taken and combined with the Thai Buddhist tradition of “merit-making“. One of the most basic ways to accumulate merit in this culture is to practice almsgiving to local monks. This involves making regular monetary or in-kind donations of food, clothing or household goods. Villagers can now instead donate their trash, and gain the same merit: the slogan of the Langsuan scheme, roughly translated from the Thai, is “Transform a pile of trash into a pile of merit”.
This is a very powerful association, providing an incentive to recycle that goes well beyond the monetary value of the waste. Recycling becomes not just a source of income that can be donated to the temple; but a source of good karma, a virtuous deed that will lead to a better next life for the donors and their families.
In addition, the “deposit days”, on which the bank is open for business, are on the Buddhist holy days, when it is customary to make a special offering to the temple. To make the link even clearer, the name has been changed from “waste bank” to “merit bank” (Thai: ธนาคารบุญ / thanakhan buh!n).
The poster above explains the scheme and shows the nine village collection points
Suttipun Suwanbundit, the leader of Trash Hero Langsuan, explained: “the heart of the issue we have here is that people simply will not separate their waste. It is mixed all together – rotting food and recyclable waste – which makes it impossible to do anything with. The use of law or fines is just not effective for Thai people. There have been big campaigns but then after the initial fuss, people would quietly go back to their old habits. We needed a continuous solution and one that showed people a clear benefit in waste separation, which would give them a reason to do it long term.”
Alongside the merit bank, Trash Hero Langsuan volunteers, in conjunction with the temple and related government departments, will be holding education sessions for local residents on how to reduce waste, in particular plastic. With the endorsement of the Abbot, who carries great authority in these deeply religious rural communities, the scheme has already seen a large uptake.
Trash Hero Langsuan is grateful for the cooperation and support of the District Health Committee, Quality of Life Development Committee, Waste Management Commmittee and all other stakeholders that enabled the project to come to life.
The latest round of Trash Hero Family Meetings drew to a close this week in Zurich, Switzerland. The city was one of two new European locations that hosted our regular team-building, training and networking event for volunteers – the other being in Prague, Czech Republic, earlier this month.
The new additions reflect the rapid growth of Trash Hero within Europe: there are now active chapters not only in Switzerland and the Czech Republic, but also in Serbia and Romania.
Trash Hero Switzerland Family Meeting in Zurich, June 2019
However, the season kicked off in April, back in Southeast Asia where the Trash Hero movement began. Trash Hero Malaysia and Singapore volunteers gathered in Kota Kinabalu from 25 – 27 April, followed by Trash Hero Indonesia teams on 2 – 4 May in Bali. Our Thai chapter leaders met in Khao Lak from 10 – 12 May, while Trash Hero Myanmar hosted their volunteers in Yangon, from 15 – 17 May.
The family meetings have become key engagements in our organisation’s calendar: as a diverse and dispersed network, they provide us with the vital time and space for immersive, face to face communication that helps to equip and motivate volunteers for the coming months. They are normally held twice a year: in April – May and October – November.
Trash Hero Indonesia volunteers clean up with a local school at their family meeting in Bali, May 2019
This time, alongside our usual activities, our chapter leaders learned how to carry out “brand audits” during their cleanups, recording the volume of the plastic packaging we regularly pick up, as well as the companies who manufacture it. The data collected over the coming year will be provided to our partner organisations, who can use it to push for systemic change in the production and disposal of single use plastic.
Members of the Break Free From Plastic coalition, who are driving corporate campaigns and global policy change, kindly joined us in Thailand to help with this important training, as we increasingly focus on connecting our communities’ experience of plastic pollution to the bigger picture.
The Break Free From Plastic team helped to train our Thai volunteers in Khao Lak, May 2019
Below are some video highlights from the recent events in Southeast Asia and Czech Republic, created entirely by the volunteers who attended them.
[Czech language only]
In total, 213 chapter leaders from 93 locations were able to join this series of family meetings – more than 90% of our global network. The total cost for all six meetings (the majority of which last 2 – 3 full days) was under $29,500, or around $138 per volunteer. This includes travel, accommodation and food for all participants, including the Trash Hero World team and external speakers. We are very grateful for the many hours of work donated in kind, as well as the monetary donations, that allow us to organise these events and continue investing in our volunteers and the amazing work they are doing around the world.
Last week, Trash Hero Bangkok joined regional stakeholders at a United Nations Environmental Programme-led conference in Bangkok dedicated to tackling the transboundary challenge of marine litter.
Globally, more than 80 percent of plastic marine debris comes from land-based sources. And in Asia, both rapid development and economic success has strained waste management – an issue that these stakeholders believe can be remedied by inter-sector collaboration together with galvanized public support.
Conference stakeholders gather to kick off discussions on reducing marine litter | Source: Thai Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment
Trash Heroes in Thailand have been coordinating this grassroots energy since 2013, forging community awareness of our individual roles within the global waste problem. Through action-based efforts like clean-ups and issue-focused education, Trash Hero Thailand has been a leading force to develop the public salience necessary for successful waste and plastic management to take root – to the tune of more than 79,500 volunteers educated and keeping nearly 600,000 kilograms of trash from entering the Thai marine ecosystems to date.
This new initiative led by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) called ‘The Southeast Asia Circular – solving plastic pollution at source’ connects nonprofit leaders like Trash Hero together with local government agencies, private sector representatives, and academic experts to collaborate toward market-based solutions and policies that reduce plastic production, waste, and mitigate its threats to the environment.
Source: UN Environment
Market-based conservation solutions are those that rely on the use of economic principles to achieve beneficial environmental outcomes. Research demonstrates that such approaches encourages environmental stewardship and fosters knowledge-based conservation, and successful policy comes from deliberately connecting producers and consumers. This can involve the creation of ecological markets, promoting education and public awareness, and coordinating competitors and their resources within the marketplace under a common, ecologically-driven goal.
Innovative solutions that stand to reduce marine waste are those that span the whole plastic value chain, starting with what the UNEP calls a “people-centred approach.” Through projects that support vulnerable groups impacted by plastic waste and prioritizing public education, Trash Hero has helped lay the groundwork for such coordination across the value chain through initiatives like its reusable bottles and bags project. In Thailand alone, Trash Hero has reduced upwards of 25 million plastic bottles and 6.5 million plastic bags by promoting and providing sustainable alternatives among Thais and tourists alike.
Trash Heroes in Bangkok
Such action has helped inspire complementary regulatory action: the Thai government recently announced it will phase out seven types of plastic between 2019 and 2022, with the ultimate goal of achieving a waste-free economy by 2027. This is in concert with other strategies like that of the Food and Drug Administration of Thailand, which is revising restrictions on the use of plastic in items like food packaging.
Bangkok Trash Hero Warawat Sabhavasu participated in the Stakeholder & Engagement breakout discussion, where he showcased local success stories of the progress Trash Heroes have made in the region. The UN highlighted this work in its closing ceremony, commending the action-based change Trash Heroes stand for.
Trash Hero at the UNEP Stakeholder & Engagement break out discussion
Conference stakeholders framed additional sustainability-driven solutions within the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, guided by a sufficiency economy philosophy that prioritizes balanced development and community resilience. This focus highlights how the success of innovative solutions – like green operating principles presented by Coca-Cola Thailand Ltd. and IKEA Southeast Asia, or circular economic strategies laid out by local government officials – is grounded in the work of Trash Heroes building public awareness, support, and grassroots action.
A recent trip to the southernmost waters of the World Ocean uncovers tons of rubbish and provides inspiration for a Trash Hero.
Trash Hero Czech Republic volunteer and artist, Veronika Podlasova, visited Nelson Island with the Czech Antarctic Research Programme in February this year, as one of a team of six who spent several weeks cleaning the snow and rocks of the plastic and other debris that had been swept in by ocean currents.
In total, they collected and audited 11 cubic metres – almost 6 metric tons! – of trash: a mix of plastics, metal, wood and hazardous waste such as batteries. All the rubbish was transported to Chile, where it was separated for recycling and safer disposal.
The whole experience was documented by Veronika, who has taken her notes, sketches, photographs and some organic material (discarded scientific samples) to create a series of artworks, including an installation. They will be shown at an exhibition in Prague this summer to educate and engage people on the issues of waste and climate change.
Below, she explains how her encounter with Antartica inspired her.
“Throughout my childhood, I was terrified of water. But all that changed when I saw my first glacier. When I stepped on the ground of King George Island. I stopped breathing for a bit. Everything was overwhelming, I had mixed feelings for several days. When I saw research stations and a human activity everywhere, I started to feel guilty for being there without scientific reason.
“While I cleared the substantial garbage and detritus off the beaches of Nelson Island, I felt the desire to document and to create what I saw even more. The trash was mainly from the fishing boats, tourist boats and of course from the surrounding continents. After work I used to go for wanders around the island. Seeing glaciers, seeing icebergs and seeing that beautiful blue void left a huge mark on my soul. I felt even more pressure to create an art piece that would evoke the same emotions as I had. I wanted to create an art piece that would wake people up to look after our planet better.”
“The Antarctic is a fabulous but extremely distant place for most of us. It’s hard to realise how fundamentally important it is for the balance and thriving of the planet’s ecosystem.
“In my art work, the viewer experiences the absence of ice through watercolours. Water in the state of ice is so powerful, yet extremely fragile. These pieces focus on the melting of ice and the beauty of crystallized forms in glaciers – I am creating a memory of what is disappearing. Ultimately, I want it to educate, engage, and connect people to their surroundings so that their thoughts can turn into action.
Veronika hopes that the message of how ocean pollution is accelerating climate change – communicated through art, rather than “dry facts and statistics” – will bridge the gap between science, emotion and action.
For more information about the upcoming exhibition in Nová Radnice, Prague, and to see more of Veronika’s work, please visit: https://veronikapodlasova.wordpress.com/
Veronika would also like to express her gratitude for the kind cooperation of the scientists and Masaryk University, who made this trip possible.
Many of our chapters across Southeast Asia are observing the holy month of Ramadan, which started on 5 May.
Cleanups for the most part have been suspended as communities will be fasting during daylight hours. However, our volunteers are still very active! The main focus is on the daily “Ramadan markets”, which provide easy, takeaway food for people who do not wish to cook during this time, as well as special treats only found during this month.
Usually a visit to the market will result in an average of 8 – 10 single-use plastic bags being used, along with an array of hard plastic boxes, cups and straws. All will end up in landfill, or worse.
On social media, and out on the streets, chapters in Malaysia and the south of Thailand have been encouraging shoppers to bring their own containers and bags for all food and drink purchases, to cut down on waste.
Trash Hero Pattani, together with Plogging Pattani are running a competition where people have to snap a photo of themselves at a market with their tiffin box, tupperware, resuable bag or cup and hashtag #ramadanchallenge1440 to win their own Trash Hero t-shirt. You can join the challenge on Facebook.
Trash Hero Langkawi volunteers, meanwhile, are engaging shoppers at their local market, by bringing their own food containers and carrier bags for buying their breaking fast food. The idea is to set a good example, as well as start a conversation about waste and how to reduce plastic usage.
Their efforts have been reported in the New Straits Times and on local television.
We wish all of our Muslim volunteers a peaceful and blessed Ramadan.
Trash Hero Koh Phi Phi had the privilege of holding a recent cleanup on the now deserted beach, by invitation of the Marine National Park Research Centre 3 and the head of the Maya Bay Rehabillitation Project, Supaporn Prempee.
Together with the National Park rangers and Ocean Quest, an international NGO who are overseeing the coral nursery program in the bay, 26 volunteers carried out the first ever microplastic survey on the beach.
“Despite the beach having been cleaned of all visible debris several times since the closure in June 2018, we were able to find 1.5kg of micro plastic particles [small pieces < 5mm in length], in an area of 150sqm [30m x 5m],” said Caroline Lecky from the local Trash Hero team.
That’s thousands of buried pieces of plastic, mostly invisible to the naked eye as you walk along the sand. The majority of these were “secondary microplastics”, or fragments of larger plastic items such as bottles and foam boxes that have broken down in the sun and ocean currents. Plastic never biodegrades. There are likely to be more, even finer particles that slipped through the sieves.
Anuar Abdullah, the founder of Ocean Quest, said of the micro plastic survey that: “the data will be saved and we will do regular sifting of the designated area to see if there is any reduction.”
In total, the team collected and removed 308kg of trash from the stunning Thai beach.
Thanks to Blue View Divers and also Barakuda Diving, who sponsored the transport and cleaning materials for the day, and to David and Parn for the beautiful video. Our thanks also to the Maya Beach Protection Unit 5 (National Park) for hosting Trash Hero, providing fruit and refreshments and joining the cleanup.
We are delighted to launch the Trash Hero edition of #tasini and #inibags, as part of our ongoing Bottles & Bags programme. The bags are a collaboration with the social enterprise Making Oceans Plastic Free, with the idea of reusing plastic bottles to help reduce plastic bag waste.
The branded resuable shoppers come in two versions: in a plain yellow pouch (Inibag) or with a cute turtle pouch (Tasini), to promote awareness of the ecosystem we want to protect.
⭐️ With this bag you save two✌️ plastic bottles from polluting the environment 👉 Each Bag is made from 2 recycled plastic bottles ♻️!
⭐️ Handmade in Indonesia!
⭐️ Attached to a keychain 🔑 so you won’t forget your reusable bag any more. Save 💯s of plastic bags each year!
⭐️ And the #tasini Trash Hero Turtle 🐢 helps you spread the message of awareness about plastic pollution and inspire the change in people around you!
Bags are distributed at cost by our chapters in Indonesia, Thailand, Myanmar, Switzerland, New York and Finland. Get in touch with your nearest chapter for more information.
Fourth grader Henry Adelson is a volunteer with Trash Hero New York. This year, he hopes his fellow classmates will join him in cleaning up the Hudson River.
My name is Henry Adelson, and I am 9 years old and going into the fourth grade. I live in New York City and go to the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, which is a few blocks from the Hudson River. Thank you for letting me share how I got involved in volunteering with an organization called Trash Hero and my plan to help them clean up New York City.
When I was in the third grade, my dad introduced me to his friend Denise Rehrig. Denise and her husband are the founders of Trash Hero New York. They learned about Trash Hero in Asia while they were traveling the world, and I learned about it from them. Trash Hero tries to keep trash from going into the water where it can be very bad for the environment. They liked it so much they asked if they could start Trash Hero in NYC.
Volunteers meet at the Hudson River a few blocks from my school once a month. I volunteered and picked up garbage along the Hudson with about 50 others just before summer vacation. We all did this to keep garbage from going into the Hudson. I was at camp this summer so couldn’t volunteer, but I’ll be back in September — and I’m bringing friends!
Trash Hero New York mobilizes volunteers to take action to keep their community, including its waterways, clean
Trash Hero is important to me for many reasons. When I was in the third grade, I studied all about the Hudson River and how the native Americans relied on the Hudson for their food and drinking water. My science teacher Barbara rents out an oyster trap in the river for the third grade, and we study all about these oysters and the importance of clean water. When I volunteered with Trash Hero, I could see our class’s oyster trap, so I was helping our oysters.
We learned that when Henry Hudson (who the Hudson River is named after) landed in New York there were so many oysters in the river, but now there are much fewer. The work Trash Hero is doing will help them come back. The more people who help keep the river clean, the better it will be for the millions of people who live near the river. It’s my dream that one day that if we all pitch in to keep the Hudson clean, we’ll be able to swim, fish, and do all sorts of other activities in and around the river.
Henry with a friend at the Trash Hero New York cleanup in September
Trash Hero can help my dream come true. I plan on helping Trash Hero by:
1) volunteering on cleanup days every time I get the chance,
2) asking friends to pitch in and join me,
3) asking my principal Rob if I can hang up posters with Trash Hero volunteer schedules,
4) once school starts in September, by telling our third grade science teacher Barbara about Trash Hero since it is helping our oysters.
Thank you again for letting me tell my story about Trash Hero as part of the Renewal Project, and thanks to the guys at Next Gen Summit for telling me and my dad about it.
Henry Adelson, August 2018
This story first appeared on The Renewal Project, Allstate’s platform to support local problem solvers who are strengthening their neighborhoods block by block. Sign up for their newsletter.
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Following this lovely story, Roman Peter, co-founder of Trash Hero World, sent Henry one of our kids’ books, and earlier this month he received a reply:
We love you too, Henry, and Trash Hero kids the world over, who are inspiring us all to take action for a cleaner world.
Only 2 square kilometres in size, the “Robinson Crusoe” paradise of Gili Meno is the smallest of the three Gili Islands off the coast of Lombok in Indonesia.
It was here, in February 2015, that Trash Hero Gili Meno was founded. Fringed by an idyllic white sand beach around its entire perimeter, the island was under attack on all sides from floating ocean plastic. And, as is common on the archipelago, there was no waste management infrastructure, and no space for landfill, so islanders used open burning as the means of disposing of their trash.
Within a couple of years, the Trash Hero Gili Meno team had motivated their fellow residents to find solutions to these problems. Every business on the island now supports the Sunday cleanups, which are also attended by most of the island’s children.
The growing passion for zero waste among chapter leaders Sulman Alfarizi Ali and Samsul “Adi” Hadi [pictured, left] eventually lead them to give up their full time jobs in tourism earlier this year and found the Brotherhood Recycling and Education Centre. Now they work on improving their community’s waste management, focusing on reduction, reuse and recycling.
The entire Brotherhood Centre is made from salvaged waste, from the bottle walls, to can and plastic bag decorations. Workshops are held to teach people recycling skills, such as how to turn empty bottles into drinking glasses by hand, using low-tech tools; any broken glass is crushed and turned into building material.
Bamboo straws and cleaning brushes are produced from locally grown plants and sold to local bars to replace plastic.
Their ecobrick initiative offers islanders rice in exchange for plastic bottles filled with non-recyclable trash, which provides an incentive not to burn the toxic material. The bottles are then used in construction projects around the community.
“I really want to look after my island,” says Sulman. “I felt that on Gili Meno sometimes we just look at money only. It was sad for me to see that everywhere there was trash and plastic, and people burning it. I think soon nobody is going to visit any more and then the money is gone… so better we clean and take care and then everyone will want to come to this beautiful place. We make it sustainable.
“Trash Hero does not give us any money but we get a lot of training and support from them. And things like t-shirts, books and bottles help to promote our activities and motivate the people to join us.”
In August 2018, a series of devastating earthquakes hit Indonesia, with the 7.0 magnitude tremor on the evening of Sunday 5 August ravaging the Gili Islands and northern Lombok. The death toll from these events, including the aftershocks that continued for weeks after, stands at 563; and more than 400,000 people lost their homes in the disaster.
In Gili Meno, around 75% of the infrastructure was destroyed.
“The earthquake had a huge detrimental effect on the island, not only in terms of buildings, but people lost their livelihoods because there was no tourism. But the local community did not for one second give up. In order to get the tourists back, and in order to maintain a sense of routine for their kids and their lives, they decided to keep the island clean – to make sure not only the tourists could enjoy it, but the local community as well,” explains Sarah Kursheed, a dive instructor based on the island.
So the Trash Hero Sunday cleanups went on and became a focus for the community rebuilding process. Life slowly got back to normal.
The community even participated in World Cleanup Day on 15 September 2018, with the support of Trash Hero, though many were still living in makeshift camps.
“Since after the earthquake it is a little hard for us,” admits Adi. “We have to start from the beginning, but slowly we will grow again and do more.”
Watch how Trash Hero Gili Meno is regenerating their island in the aftermath of the Indonesian earthquakes:
Trash Hero World co-founder, Roman Peter, visited the island in November 2018 and was amazed at the spirit he found. “It’s inspirational to me how they have got through this disaster together. It was especially moving to see how the Trash Hero activities gave the kids some much needed structure after the trauma of losing their homes. The focus on reducing and reusing waste is stronger than ever and we will do everything we can to support them in this.”
See for yourself in the resulting short movie, above: filmed entirely on site in November, mere months after the earthquake, the strength and motivation of Trash Hero Gili Meno is an inspiration to us all.
Hopefully, it is also clear from the video that the island is once again open for tourists, and is as safe and beautiful as ever – go visit and be amazed!
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The growing passion for zero waste among chapter leaders Sulman Alfarizi Ali and Samsul “Adi” Hadi [pictured, left] eventually lead them to give up their full time jobs in tourism earlier this year and found the Brotherhood Recycling and Education Centre. Now they work on improving their community’s waste management, focusing on reduction, reuse and recycling.
So the Trash Hero Sunday cleanups went on and became a focus for the community rebuilding process. Life slowly got back to normal.