Anyone can start going plastic-free, anytime

Douglas, second from right, with friends. The enamel mugs

Douglas Yeo, Course Director, DIWA, is passionate about saving the environment. While he is best known for being the diver from Singapore who participated in the Thai cave rescue in 2018 and being nominated for Singaporean of the Year, he is also the person behind a steadily-growing campaign to go plastic-free.

The PlasticFREE initiative, backed by DIWA, is all about pledging to do more to reduce plastic waste. Those who pledge can start small, with our own lives, and share the message with family and friends. 

Yeo talked about going to McDonald's in Singapore, and instead of using the disposable plastic saucers available for ketchup and chilli sauce, just applying the sauces directly onto the food, for example. He suggested that gestures to go plastic-free can be shared on social media, and was delighted that Old Chang Kee at Rex, where we met, was using enamel crockery instead of plastic ones.

The PlasticFREE pledge is Save Our Sea And Earth, for which there is an annual supporting campaign of the same name to clean up the beach in Bintan, Indonesia every year. Yeo has been raising awareness about plastics with Bintan residents, and was heartened to see two large bags of rubbish cleared during the 6th campaign in 2018, as opposed to five or six bags in earlier campaigns.

The 2018 campaign worked with the Tanjong Pinang Kawal Tunas Kindergarten, local fishermen and friends. Yeo realised his message had had an impact when an older child came in 2018 with a younger sibling to participate, telling him that she had been involved in an earlier cleanup and remembered him from then.

Source: Scuba Rangers Singapore Facebook page. A poster for the PlasticFree campaign featuring Yeo.

Explore:

The event page for Save Our Sea And Earth 2018

A Facebook post about the PlasticFREE campaign