The Year 2021
As we reach the end of the year we have a lot to reflect on the year 2021.
The New Workshop
As our lease came up for renewal, everything had changed since we first moved in to our space in November, 2019, except our rental price! The circumstance however turned out to be in our favor as we found an incredible new space to become our workshop close by.
The building is decorated with ornate Batuan style carvings. We have several rooms, one of which we plan to make a sanitary space for producing organic bamboo cotton buds, bamboo toothbrushes, reusable sanitary pads and more. We're putting a physical shop front together so we can receive walk-ins.
We're just completing our dry-room. This is a dehumidifying room that will help us to remove moisture from bamboo materials and finished products. This makes bamboo easier to work with and helps us to eliminate the possibility of moisture retained within bamboo developing mold. This is especially important now rainy season has set in and humidity levels are sky-high.
If you’re in Bali and haven’t seen it yet, come by and visit, and for our friends overseas, come visit us in Bali again soon!
Loofah
For us, the biggest hit of the year has been Loofah! Everybody wants this beautiful magic sponge and we ran out of all supplies by mid-June. Our good friends Dendy and Raihan went out to Aceh, Indonesia to start a farm and now we are collaborating to ensure a constant supply of Loofah in future.
6 months later, our first harvest of these beauties is bearing fruit! The process has not gone too smoothly though, a strong drought in Aceh has led to a very small output. We will need to collaborate to install piping to transport nearby river water to the Loofah patches to be able to guarantee a better harvest next time around.
Fortunately, we also have some new sources and are developing further collaborations with a range of friends and farmers in Bali and Java to get more Loofah growing.
If you’d like to learn more about Loofah, see our previous blog post on Everything to know about loofah!
Spreading Eco-Awareness in Indonesia
Indonesia has been slower to recognize the connection between our purchasing decisions and its effect on the planet. Regulation on single-use plastics is a long way behind the recent progress in other countries.
Only through prolonged social awareness and pressure from the youth movement at Bye Bye Plastic Bags, did Bali introduce its first Island-wide regulation to reduce single-use plastics in 2018. This has been a huge step in the right direction, but there are still difficulties enforcing this, and a gap remains in public education on the topic.
The message is starting to spread and the movement starting to build. We want to help share alternative solutions to single-use plastic across the country.
When we got a call from TVRI, Indonesia's primary TV channel, we were pretty excited. Their crew came to our new workshop and filmed our team working and an interview with Yasmin, who was invited to join a live TV show a couple of weeks later.
Watch Yasminida on TVRI below.
Tokopedia
Tokopedia is Indonesia's largest online ecommerce site. It's like our version of Amazon.com but without the massive space penis... or his rocket ships! Using this platform makes us accessible across all of Indonesia.
The Best Ways to Pay
We’ve updated all of the ways you can send us payments. Now you can pay by:
Transferwise – The best platform for International Bank Transfers
Credit/Debit Card – Through our website or Tokopedia
Virtual Account – For Indonesian Bank users to make instant/zero-fee payments.
E-Wallet – Doku, OVO, Dana, LinkAja
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