“What bothers me is that people tend to look at these rivers and these polluted beaches and think ‘somebody needs to clean it up’—that’s just completely wrong. Because not only is it almost impossible and inefficient, but it’s really not the solution. The solution is prevention,” says Tiza Mafira in the film, Story of Plastic, as she takes a boat trip down the polluted Ci Liwung River that flows through Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta.

In the crowded capital city of Manila, the Philippines, one quarter of the population of 15 million people has less than one dollar to spend per day. Residents depend upon the tiny and ubiquitous convenience stores, known as sari-sari stores, for daily essentials like food and hygiene products, much of which are sold in convenient single-use sachets (small plastic pouches) for just a few cents each. These sari-sari stores are the major source of the 150 million sachets used daily in the Philippines.