BOOM! Great news for the planet folks! Twas an epic day in Jogja for Ecobricking that will now reverberate throughout Indonesia. Several hundred people, a dozen media, and various cities dignitaries joined us for the unveiling of 2500 ecobricks. Our team of ecobrickers were on hand for a live demonstration of ecobrick modules. In under 2 minutes the team manifested a stage for us. Then another minute for a couch. Then a table. Then a 3M tall Jogjakarta “Tugu” tower landmark!
The live demo caught the audience by surprise. They were perhaps expecting a lecture or powerpoint from Ani and I. Instead, they were wowed with a a coordinated 3D demo of our module tech in live-action. Our 20 trainers swirled around the stage showing how our ecobrick modules fit together to make super cool things in minutes. It was almost easy to forget that our stage, tables, chairs were being made from plastic “trash”.
These were the same trainers who had visited every neighbourhood unit in the city. The event not only showcased a half ton of transformed plastic, it showed the power of a small group of people to profoundly impact their community.
It was a powerful, poignant and passionate demo. It helped reinforce my main message– the key to solving plastic is not to judge it as “Trash” in the first place. Ecobricking isn’t a “Waste Management strategy”. We’re transcending waste all together.
The skeptical politician who had cut the ribbon and introduced the event was blown away. He literally grabbed the mic from my hand mid-way through our presentation to announce that he was going to personally launch a city wide initiative support ecobricking in every neighbourhood. He then happily posed for lots of pics afterwards.
Jogja is the first city in the world that I know of, to officially launch ecobricking as a coordinated municipal strategy to curb consumption. What we unveiled today is now a model that can be replicated by other cities. But most of all, its 547.2kg of plastic that has kept out of the biosphere.
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