Talking of shifting baselines, when exactly did it become the norm to see beaches like the one pictured on the left?
It is so common now, it barely elicits a comment. By some estimates, nearly 6 million pieces of plastic are now discharged into our seas every day.
At Bangkok Farmers' Market, we have decided that there is something we can all do about this. We're launching a campaign, and we need your help.
The idea came from looking at the way many people in Asia use and reuse plastic bags.
What is really common is for people to accept the free plastic bags when they shop at the supermarket and then reuse these as dustbin bags.
It feels basically OK to take the plastic bags from the supermarket, because you are going to have to put your rubbish in something, right?. If you don't use the supermarket's bag, you are going to have to buy your own dustbin liners.
Wrong.
We have decided to tackle the problem at its source. If we can provide people with ecological dustbin bags, then there is really no justification for taking the free plastic bags from the supermarket.
And when we say ecological, we don't mean those plastic bags that degrade in sunlight, because that would still be useless in a landfill. No, we are investing in genuinely biodegradable bags made from tapioca. Watch out for these at upcoming Farmers' Markets. Please use them and support our campaign.