Through our campaign, Rethink Plastic, we collaborated with Boga Group, a culinary group owning 13 restaurant brands with hundreds of outlets all over Indonesia including Bakerzin, Pepper Lunch, Shaburi, and Kintan Buffet, to initiate “10,000 Bamboo Straws for 10,000 Trees” program. We have been provided 10,000 bamboo straws at Boga Group’s outlets and will use the profit to plant 10,000 trees.

At Evoware, we do our part to create a cleaner and healthier environment, so everyone can experience how wonderful our home planet truly is. We know it’s impossible to work alone and still have the impact on the earth we aspire to, so we always look for ways to collaborate with fellow eco-warriors. Teamed up with Project Semesta, Burgreens and Union Yoga, we have created Pasar Semesta, a festival to celebrate a sustainable, conscious, eco-friendly and ethical lifestyle. Our aim with Pasar Semesta is to share our love for nature and to inspire people to be more conscious and mindful of how our daily life—everything we do—affects our earth. The event was held on 2 & 3 December 2017 at Union Yoga and Burgreens Dharmawangsa, Jakarta’s first organic, healthy, plant-based eatery. As a pre-event, we held Kumpul Semesta, a series of discussions with practitioners and professionals about sustainable food, sustainable fashion, minimalism and finding a healthy balance between work and life. Bringing up different topics every week leading up to Pasar Semesta, we encouraged everyone participating to dig deeper into the subject of our basic needs, to truly see the relationship between each of our own selves and the earth. Most people feel that sustainability or environmental issues are outside themselves, far from themselves. In fact, sustainability is always here, with us and within us. It is the food we choose and the clothes we wear. Our daily activities and consumption affect the earth as a whole. In Kumpul Semesta, we asked everyone to be more critically aware of what they choose, and to only consume what adds spark and true value to their lives. For Pasar Semesta, we brought and presented various activities so visitors could get a bigger picture of what a sustainable lifestyle is all about, to get their hands on and experience that lifestyle, and to learn more about brands and products dedicated to supplying and supporting a sustainable lifestyle. We offered talk shows, dialogues, workshops, movie screenings, yoga, and meditation, as well as thoughts on and examples of swap, repair and bulk storage, and sustainable brand markets. Most of the activities were free and visitors could interact closely, with both our speakers and each other, to gain insights into the most suitable sustainability practices that they can apply to their own daily lives. Our workshops ranged from DIY home remedies such as upcycling plastic bag waste to create home décor, to composting and urban farming for kids. Our dialogues covered topics from zero-waste living, sustainable food, sustainable businesses, and sustainable urban lifestyles to find ikigai, the power of community and biodiversity. To focus on the sustainable brand market, we collaborated with brands who share and promote the kind of lifestyle that we wish to make a part of our lifestyles on this earth. Requirements? The brand has to be local, ethical, and use natural materials and sustainable practices, or at least be headed in that direction. We succeeded in making this event waste-less, prohibiting our vendors from using plastic packaging, including plastic bags, and from handing out flyers. We also encouraged visitors to bring their own shopping bags, as well as jars, tumblers, cutlery and old or worn out clothes to be repaired, donated or swapped. We also asked everyone to take public transport if possible. We were so happy and energized by the positive vibe that our visitors brought to the event. We made new friends and reaped inspiration, energy and the spirit to keep on doing what we’re doing. We hope this movement becomes only bigger and that many people, especially urbanites, will also choose a sustainable lifestyle—the lifestyle we need to maintain this earth for generations to come.

Plastic pollution We can all agree that disposable plastic is bad for the environment. However, it is undeniable that we became reliant to it. Plastic has offered us with numerous benefits. It is lightweight, flexible, water resistant and most importantly, cheap. Due to these strengths, plastics are literally everywhere. If you pause reading and look around, there is probably some kind of plastic material on your sight. While making your life extra convenient, plastic becomes problematic at the end of its useful life. Disposable plastics are only useful within minutes, but can persist on this planet for centuries, long after your own lifespan. This clearly shows that the environmental impact plastic causes outweigh the convenience it offers. Out of the 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic waste that were produced since 1950, only 9 per cent are recycled and around 60 per cent end up in the landfill and natural environment (source: Great Britain’s Royal Statistical Society). In the long run, humans, being at the top of the food-chain, will be imperilled by plastic contamination in our water and food. In the midst of a global plastic crisis, a lot of attention has been placed towards individual-level plastic consumption. On average, individual Indonesian would use 700 plastic bags each year (source: Greeneration). Over 20 years, that person would have already generate 14,000 plastic waste, which is already significant enough without adding the other plastic items that are commonly used, such as plastic straws, cutlery and bottles. What we do about it? Rethink Plastic is one of the six topics relating to consumption that are raised by Rethink Campaign, a collaborative campaign initiated Evoware and Campaign. As part Rethink Campaign’s collaborative movement of individuals, communities, brands, retailers and companies, Rethink Plastic is targeting people to evaluate their habits in terms of their plastic consumption. Our mission is to get 1,000,000 people to reduce their plastic consumption by using sustainable alternatives by 2020. In order to achieve this goal, we provide a set of reusable products that we proudly call the Rethink Kit. While assisting people in implementing a new lifestyle with less plastic, Rethink Kit also serves as a tool to measure our achievement. For each Rethink Kit that is given means one person has switched to sustainable alternatives, hence reduced their plastic consumption. The alternatives inside our Rethink Kit includes bamboo straw, brush, bamboo cutlery, cutlery pouch, tumbler and produce bag. By using one Rethink Kit, a person can reduce 362 plastic straws, 107 plastic cutlery, 1277 plastic bottles and 700 plastic bags within a year. How to join Rethink Plastic? We are open for collaboration with individuals, communities, brands, retailers and companies. You can purchase our Rethink Kit as an individual, or you can collaborate with us to distribute our Rethink Kit to the wider community. We have collaborated with numerous companies, brands and events, including DBS Bank, Boga Group, World Resources Institute, Gigi Art of Dance, Red Planet, Happiness Festivals, Departemen Lingkungan Hidup, GandengTangan, Campaign, Aliansi Zero Waste Indonesia, Etmico, Coaction and Nara Bepro. Through intensive collaborations, so far we have helped 18,755 people to reduce their plastic consumption.