Plastic pollution: Thai girl’s war on trash, inspired by Greta Thunberg, and her first victory in quest for a sustainable world
- Swedish teen ‘gave me confidence’, says Lilly, 12, who paddles Bangkok canals picking up rubbish, and convinced a supermarket to stop giving out plastic bags
- With Thailand the sixth-largest global contributor to ocean pollution, she says: ‘I try to stay optimistic but I am also angry. Our world is disappearing’
Skipping school to glide through a dirty Bangkok canal on a paddle board, Ralyn Satidtanasarn (known as Lilly) fishes out rubbish in her mission to clean up Thailand, where the average person uses eight plastic bags every single day.
“I am a kid at war,” the bubbly 12-year-old says after a painstaking hour spent picking up cans, bags and bottles bobbing in the canal. “I try to stay optimistic but I am also angry. Our world is disappearing,” she adds.
Thailand is the sixth-largest global contributor to ocean pollution, and plastic is a scourge.
Whether it’s for wrapping street food, takeaway coffees or for groceries, Thais use 3,000 single-use bags per year – 12 times more than someone from the European Union.
In June, Lilly won her first victory: she persuaded Central, a major supermarket in Bangkok, to stop giving out plastic bags in its stores once a week.