Monthly Archives: February 2008

I’m Your Shopping Bag

Logo of Anti Plastic Bag Campaign

Anti Plastic Bag Campaign contains a series of events that were initiated by the Environmental Engineering Student Association (Himpunan Mahasiswa Teknik Lingkungan/HMTL) of ITB, Bandung. It ended on Saturday, Feb 9th 2008, with performances, awards, exhibitions and a campaign walk. Friendster site of Antiplasticbag Campaign: http://profiles.friendster.com/50754114

Among the events was a non-plastic bag design competition that was held a couple of months before. The intention of this competition (and its result) is to encourage people to bring their own shopping bags, so they don’t have to use (free, flimsy) plastic bags provided by stores or merchants. Therefore, the bag should be compact and attractive. The winning design was put into production and are available for purchase during the campaign, and here’s how it looks:

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Pizza Box: Warung Laos

If you order a pizza-to-go from Warung Laos, you will be pleasantly surprised by the pizza box: it’s not the usual cardboard with colorful graphics and loud information about how you could order more pizzas from them. And you won’t end up feeling guilty about throwing stacks of (stained) paper boards, which have to be cleaned and recycled, using plenty of energy and water resources. Nope. Because their pizza box is made of woven bamboo, the kind you would get in a much smaller size when buying mochi (glutinous rice cake with sweet fillings, a typical ‘souvenir food’ from Bandung).

What’s so great about using woven bamboo box? First, it’s not made of paper; it doesn’t come from a tree so you don’t have to wait tens of years to get another boxes coming. You only have to wait for three years to make new boxes – without any damaging effect to our rain forest! And, producing the boxes, you actually provide jobs for the weavers, because it is all done manually, using basic weaving skills.

Inside, the pizza is covered in bread paper, with prints containing information about the restaurant (to make up for the ‘plain’ package?). Condiments (ketchup and chili sauce) that go with the pizza are not the industrial sachet you’d normally find in fast-food restaurant. Instead, these sauces are packed in a sealed mini plastic sachet. Who knows which version is better for the environment, but the latter one is arguably cheaper.

Last but not least, the pizza itself is a winner: it has crisp thin crust, delicious and generous topping – even unusual ones (banana & blueberry pizza, anyone?). It is, overall, a unique experience. Where else could you find pizza-to-go in a box with personality?

Warung Laos
Jl. Prof. Eyckman 2 (Cihampelas) BANDUNG
Tel: +62 (0)22 203 0516