A White Monday open letter to changemakers lessons learned from Save the Planet with a Bottle campaign.

Dear fellow changemakers,

I am Mon, the voice behind Happy Earth Farm. We are a small organic farm based in Thailand. Most people know us from our 100% natural no-poo Head to Toe Wash (shampoo, conditioner, body wash). It’s entirely made of fruits, leaf, and seeds, and is 100% EDIBLE!. (Check us out on Instagram @happyearthfarm .)

Usually, I refrain from writing about my personal journey with Happy Earth Farm. Because I want to focus on my inspiration, which is the story of our founders and the philosophy of the farm. However, for White Monday, I am asked to share my personal journey in coming up with this circular economy model through Save the Planet with a Bottle Campaign. Hence, I am writing this open letter for anyone who hopes to create change in the world. 

During September and October, we have been promoting the Save the Planet with a Bottle campaign with different organizations around Singapore such as The Social Space and ActiveSG Sports Center. From the campaign, we have successfully saved 200+ bottles from being incinerated. Instead, they were reused at our events around town in an attempt to create awareness about plastic waste and pollution. 

How does this come about you may ask…

It started off with our frustration.

• We were not able to find an alternative to HDPE plastic bottles that we are already using for our No-Poo Head-to-Toe Wash. We have researched bio-plastic, PLA plastic, compostable and biodegradable plastic. None is able to answer our needs fully.
  
  
• Although glass bottles can keep our preservative-free liquid soap much better, high logistic cost and risk of breakage make glass bottle even less appealing, especially when used in a bathroom.
  
  
• Our lime-based acidic liquid soap cannot be turned into a bar soap without chemical additives which would defeat our main purpose of creating personal care products the traditional way using no chemicals at all.
  
  
• We do not want to fall into another greenwashing trap –  using “GREEN” as a marketing tool.

Our struggle to find the best available packaging is turned into a stumbling block to our business. We were frustrated and did not know what to do. So we went back to our favorite philosophy book and something comes up. 

We started questioning who we truly are, what we want to see in the world, what change we want to create, and what we can do to help the community, the environment, and the business at the same time. In a way, it’s like a spiritual journey that reminds us to stick to our goal and mission; returning us to our roots.

For two months, we have been pondering upon these questions. Finally, we find that by focusing on things we can do maybe we are able to address the plastic issues in a creative way. The solution we come up with actually has less to do with the bottle material and more to do with how bottles are used and reused. That’s the start of Save the Planet with a Bottle journey.

The idea is simple; REDUCE REUSE REFILL. We encourage people to give us their used HDPE bottles by giving out a sample of our No-Poo soap. The collected bottles will be cleaned and offered for sale as refill bottles during popup events. Our clients at events who do not bring their own bottles can purchase our cleaned used bottles to fill our products with.

We kickstarted our campaign in September with our retail partner, The Social Space as a drop-off location. With help from the zero-waste community in Singapore, we received a total of 50 bottles. It was beyond our expectations! Meanwhile, organizations like ActiveSG reached out to us for the same campaign at their facility to promote plastic reduce, reuse, recycle among the local community.

In October we had our own pop-up booth for the first time to collect the bottles at ActiveSG Sengkang Sports Center. In addition to the bottle collection, we also ran educational activities with kids and families to start a conversation around plastic waste. At the same time, we got to test-run offering the collected cleaned bottles for refill.

The response was beyond our imagination. We received words of encouragement from the community. Some were seniors who agreed to the idea of reusing bottles. Many were families with kids who collect bottles for us. One of our returning customers even brought us 75 unused bottles from her workplace. These bottles would otherwise be thrown away as the company changes the packaging materials. Meanwhile, people stopped by at our booth asking questions about plastic waste. We talked about how many kinds of plastic there are and how plastic packaging is recycled, what they should do with their plastic waste why are we doing it this way. Through meaningful conversations like this, we hope to plant seeds of change and make people question their actions.

From the two campaigns, we were able to collect over 200 bottles in total. Thanks to the community and the like-minded organizations like The Social Space and ActiveSG for joining in. Thanks to a bunch of influencers and publications who featured us. I cannot be more thankful for various Facebook groups on Zero Waste communities in Singapore such as the Journey to Zero Waste in Singapore, Green Nudge or Little Green Men.

Of course, it may not make a big impact now and is still far from perfect but at least it is the first step towards what we feel is right. The main promise of REDUCE REUSE REFILL is realized in a win-win circular economy situation for all stakeholders, businesses, local communities, government authorities. For Happy Earth, it means no more new plastic bottles entering Singapore. For consumers, they get to reuse the plastic and make reusing the new norm. For the earth, there will be less plastic waste created.

By sharing my side of the story, I hope you know where we come from and what our journey is like. There’s still a long way to go as we start to collaborate with more and more brands, businesses, government authorities, and communities. But what I learn about this Save the Planet with a Bottle journey is that sometimes the best thing you can do to create change is to embody the change yourself. When you truly believe in it, things will flow.

Don’t give up because it is impossible. Don’t give up because there are challenges you have to overcome. Don’t give up only because you don’t get the credit you deserve. Because in the end, the struggles only serve to challenge your own belief. Your definition of change will be defined and redefined. Along the process, your belief will be even more sound and grounded. And if it truly comes from a good heart, a whole possibility of collaboration and making a bigger impact will appear in ways beyond your imagination.

Now I’m off to plan the next Save the Planet with a Bottle Campaign. And if you’d like to join in, please LIKE our facebook page or follow our Instagram @happyearthfarm.

Best wishes to all the changemakers out there

JIA YOU everyone! 🙂