November 3, 2021 Update!

We are happy to report that a very successful cleanup in Bali's Mangroves was completed on October 28th! The 9dollarclub was able to support a dedicated team of 16 people that managed to collect 1,874 pounds of plastic via an eight hour clean up session. Below are some pictures of the event and a small thank you video from Sam, one of the founders.  Please watch the slide show and videos below!

October 25, 2021

80% of the oceans plastic pollution originates from the world's rivers - Indonesia is the second biggest polluter behind only China. It blew our minds when Sam Bencheghib, one of the founders of Make A Change World shared that with us. 

"We are on a mission to stop plastic from going into the ocean by installing trash barriers in every river around Indonesia. Multiple barriers per river are installed to better understand flaws in waste management as well as create mass education and socialization campaigns with the local community to prevent throw-away behavior in our rivers" Sam told us.

Sungai Watch is an initiative started by Make A Change World to address the problem of plastic pollution in community waterways that makes its way into the ocean. Rivers unfortunately often become the 'garbage bins' of a lot of villages and are huge contributors to ocean pollution. The impacts of plastic in our water is a huge problem that impacts everyone one of us, from the food we eat to the loss of life from ingestion, suffocation and entanglement of ocean mammals.

To date, 101 trash barriers have been installed on the island of Bali in Indonesia, all of which are monitored and cleaned on a daily basis. The trash collected during the cleaning is brought back to one of their Research Stations, where the trash is sorted, washed and upcycled. They are currently exploring ways to upcycle the 15 different material types they collect in the rivers."

• Since August 2020, Make A Change has collected 1.5M tons of plastic from the rivers of Indonesia. 
• Indonesia is responsible for 10% of the worlds oceans plastic pollution, second only to China. 
• Unfortunately only 10% of Indonesia's plastic is currently under waste management and recycled. 

Who is MakeAChange.World?

They are an environmental and media outlet that uncovers uplifting and inspirational stories on a mission to do good.  Growing up on the island of Bali in Indonesia, they have seen first hand the direct impact plastic pollution was having on our home island. In 2009, at the ages 12 (Sam), 14 (Gary), and 16 (Kelly), they siblings started “Make A Change Bali,” a youth-led environmental organization on a mission to clean up the waterways of Bali. 

The siblings have continued to create a following  For the past 10 years, they have grown operations to become a full-time media outlet and environmental organization. Their Make A Change videos have garnered over 600 million views across social media and our projects have included running across the US with up-cycled plastic shoes to traveling down the world’s most polluted river on plastic-bottle-kayaks, which inspired Indonesia’s biggest mass clean up. 

In all of their travels, they have seen the detrimental effects plastic can have on communities and the environment. LAst year (their one year anniversary is today!), they launched Sungai Watch, a river cleanup program to stop plastic in rivers before it enters the ocean. We have a team working on developing affordable and replicable solutions and deploying them in our waterways, where trash can still be intercepted.  

They are creating solutions that are affordable and as localized as possible for them to be massively scalable.

What Did We Give?

With our October 2021 give, we are proud to be honoring the work of Sam and his siblings for the organization they have built, honoring the one year anniversary of the Sungai Watch program, and the impact that their mission has on all of us.

With our $500 donation to Make A Change World, we are able to hire a team of 15 people to do a one day river clean up with an expected collection of 1000 pounds of plastic from one of the river barriers that would otherwise find it's way into the ocean! What we especially like about Make A Change World is how they are using the power of data to truly start a conversation with corporations, distributors, governments and consumers to see if there are solutions to help.  

The 9dollarclub sponsored clean up is currently scheduled the 28th of October and we'll be sure to share some of the outcome of this event. We look forward to sending an update to about the outcome of our sponsored river cleanup!  Please watch the video below to learn more about the program and impact it is making.