bali entrepreneur launches cassava based bioplastic

Bali is plagued with plastic. 

Plastic litters the island’s beautiful beaches and clogs sewers. 

Hoping to bring a solution to the table, a man in Bali has apparently come up with a biodegradable and compostable ‘plastic’ material—made from cassava—that dissolves in hot water and is even safe for consumption. 

This is the same guy behind those eco-friendly biowear ponchos and biodegradable packaging you can find around Bali. 

Using cassava starch, vegetable oil, and organic resins for the bio-plastic, local surfer and entrepreneur Kevin Kumala even drank a glass of his own cassava plastic material to show that he and his social enterprise, Avani, are not just making claims. 

"I wanted to show this bioplastic would be so harmless to sea animals that a human could drink it," Kumala said, as quoted by CNN. "I wasn't nervous because it passed an oral toxicity test.”

Kumala is working towards the same goal as the “Bye Bye Plastic Bags” Green School students, who have pressured the governor to ban plastic bags in Bali by 2018.