Villa Bans Plastic Bags

Crossed linked at Mr. Dyke's Blog


I just had my second meeting with Villa and it was a good one. I found out that they have 18 Villas in Thailand and the smallest one is in Nichada Thani. However this Villa alone uses 500,000 bags per year.
They were very impressed by the # of people on Facebook supporting this cause and were encouraged to do more because of it.
They have not committed to charging for plastic bags. Instead, they went with the plan and have agreed to BAN all plastic bags at Villa (in Nichada). As well, they will do the same for Villa (in Phuket). This is a giant leap forward, as only a couple years ago it was hard to get anyone to consider this topic. If these two locations are successful, then naturally they would look to expand this to all 18 stores. They are even thinking of maybe having a battery return station at their stores and are looking to alternatives to foam. So Villa has made their commitment and many parts of the plan are already laid out. They will launch this either late January or sometime in February. They actually had a set date, but I couldn't make it... opps ; )

Where do you come in? This is the MOST IMPORTANT PART. All you need to do is... are you ready for it? You need to SHOP! That's it, however, it is absolutely crucial that we support this. When the day is chosen to launch, we MUST have as many supporters there as possible. We need to put our money where our mouth is. That means showing up and buying your groceries for the week. Show Thailand that going green is actually good for business and is a win-win situation. I plan on getting as much media coverage as possible, so if you have connections let me know. I have some already. This will be a major flop if only 80 people turn up. I am setting a target goal of 1000 people. Hopefully we can get more. If we make this a HUGE success with a HUGE turn out then the rest of Thailand will listen and it will make future projects more possible. Remember Villa is only project 1.

When the date is set I will send out an invitation and hopefully you can commit to it. It should be on a weekend.

Join up on Facebook. Over 900 people joined in 4 days!

Excellent videos also on the Facebook site about this topic

PS - keep spreading the word.
Step 1 - success!
Step 2 - up to you...

Post is crossed referenced at Mr. Dyke's Blog



Students learn to recycle by collecting items at home and then earning a little money when we take this trip. They also learn about the neighborhood composting program that is a win-win for farmers and the community. All this is done on an eco friendly solar bus which Nichada kindly provides for us.

Bangkok Police Going Green?

Over my 6 years in Thailand I have seen this country slowly become more green minded. From increase in tree planting, to shopping malls hosting green events and starting to consider reducing plastic bags, to more sky trains, and even having buses switching to natural gas fuel. But I was pleasantly surprised to find this video about the police department. 3 cheers for the cops!



Want to see Bangkok go even greener? Keep your eye on Carrotmob. Coming soon.

No More Bottled Water

The HS Green Panthers selected one of their project this year to be trying to stop the sale of bottled water at ISB. We are in the beginning stages, but there is movement happening. There are many concerns and issues with the move, so it is not as simple as it might seem. We would need to supply more fountains around campus, we want to provide every student with a water bottle, and people need to be educated about this issue. These are only some of the main concerns.

We have narrowed it down to two bottles; Vapur, which is the anti-bottle and has some unique characteristics, such as rolling up when empty; and the Water Geek. Both are BPA free and have other qualities we are looking for.

Samples will be here soon. What would you want to use?

I know other schools out there have gotten rid of bottled water. Please send us any information you might have that can help us.

Pammy and the United Nations

I'm a little late reporting this one, but back in September we took 10 ISB students (5 MS and 5 HS) to the U.N. building to help in a worldwide conference on Climate Change. It was called Seal the Deal and was hosted in Korea, but we were video conferenced in as were others from Brazil, Canada, South Africa, China, and more.

We were 10 amongst 1000's of youths collaboratively working together in real time around the world on a common cause. Together we helped form the proposal for Seal the Deal. This proposal will be taken to the Climate Change meeting in Denmark in December.

The last major meeting on this cause before the Copenhagen talks were held in Bangkok. We were honored to have our very own Green Panther, 'Pammy' selected as guest youth speaker for the United Nations. Congratulations Pammy!

Stuart Scott

In October we were fortunate enough to have a visit and presentation by Stuart Scott about Climate Change. Stuart has been trained by Al Gore on the subject. He spoke with students from grade 5-12 and also met with the ToK class. Stuart is is Thailand to discuss this topic with as many influenced people as possible. A colleague of mine, Robin Bulsza, also wrote a class blog about this.

I would like to thank Stuart for giving us his time and sending the message of action loud and clear. Recently Stuart has been granted an audience with Pope Benedict. Let's hope something positive can come of it.

To find out more about Stuart and what he is doing go to Interfaith Declaration.

350 - Can ISB do it?

On Oct 24th people from all around the world will mark this day with a 350 design. This is the safe number of Co2 we can have in our atmosphere. Watch this video(s) and think about if ISB should join.