In the course of Destination Asia Indonesia’s sustainability efforts and on the way to become Travelife certified, we committed in mid-2018 to reduce the usage of plastic within all our operations. This campaign was driven both inside and outside our offices – by changing the use of plastic bottles into glass bottles and wet tissues wrapped in plastic into biodegradable tissues made from bamboo fibre.
We are now very pleased to inform that on December 24th 2018, Bali Governor Wayan Koster, announced a ban on single-use plastic in 2019 – which means no more dreaded Styrofoam, plastic bags or plastic straws.
This initiative follows an earlier announcement made in October 2018 by the regional government of Denpasar to ban plastic bags in supermarkets and shopping malls in the city by 1st January 2019, however, this did not cover the entire island or other types of single-use plastics.
The new regulation has now been widened to the whole island of Bali and will take effect within six months to give businesses time to source alternative options. Following the ban, the Governor hopes to reduce Bali’s plastic marine pollution by 70%.
There are certainly many more steps to be taken to free Bali from this toxic polluter, but we are excited at being part of these actions and look forward to a clean and greener future for Bali.
