“I stood atop a mountain made of what the world has thrown away, shoes without soles, old food, diapers, dolls without heads, plastic bottles faded by too many suns.

Around me, barefoot children ran across this moving, rotting earth with the ease of those who’ve never known grass. They smiled. They played. They worked.

I handed out meals that would be gone in hours, and I wondered:
How many of us live insulated from the truth that our waste becomes someone else’s world?

But in the eyes of the mothers, the quiet determination of the fathers, and the joy of children who find ways to dance even on decay, I saw the kind of strength, resilience, heart and human grace no textbook, rapport or numbers could ever teach me...” ~Lisen

When Sumati Group founder Lisen visited a small workshop tucked away in Bali, she wasn’t expecting to find a former T-shirt printer from Java leading one of the most promising grassroots innovations in the region. But that’s exactly what she encountered at Get Plastic, a nonprofit turning plastic waste into usable fuel through a homegrown pyrolysis machine now in its 15th prototype. In a country facing one of the world’s worst plastic pollution crises, this hands-on solution is lighting the way toward a regenerative, community-powered future.