“I am sorry it’s so disgusting” foreign tourists are told before they visit the famous Air Manis beach on the outskirts of Padang, West Sumatra. The beach is famous as the site of the legendary figure Malin Kundang who had a rags-to-riches story but who was ashamed of his mother. On his return home, she cursed him and he was turned into a pile of rocks which visitors go to see. Ironically, Air Manis means ‘sweet water’ but today the sea is littered with plastic bags that are swept on to the beach by every wave. Local residents protest that the plastic washes up from other parts of the city. Yet, along with the ‘Malin Kundang t-shirts’, stallholders sell drinks, snacks and fresh fruit – every one of them supplied in a single use plastic (SUP) bag!

For many domestic tourists, the plastic is just normal life, they see through the waste and aren’t aware that it doesn’t have to be that way. In an attempt to change the narrative, the Perahu Nusantara Foundation has been working with stallholders to see them commit to stop using SUP. The Foundation has been receiving donations of old material and employed a local woman who has sewn more than 3000 resuable bags with the strapline “Air Manis is cool without single use plastic”. This initiative is raising awareness that SUP is unnecessary and bad for the environment. Coupled with Perahu Nusantara Foundation’s educational awareness program among the young people of Air Manis, step by step we hope to see local people looking after their beautiful natural environment.