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Supermarkets in Asia are Now Using Banana Leaves Instead of Plastic Packaging

Supermarkets in Vietnam have adopted an initiative from Thailand that makes use of banana leaves instead of plastic as a packaging alternative.

Thailand earned praise on Facebook for coming up with the eco-friendly packaging after a local firm featured it on their page last week.

The novel idea, which was an instant hit among netizens, soon caught the attention of Vietnamese supermarkets.

Big supermarket chains in Vietnam, such as Lotte Mart, Saigon Co.op, and Big C,have all started to follow in the Thai store’s footsteps by experimenting with banana leaves as a packaging alternative in their stores as well.

In an interview with VnExpress, a representative from the Lotte Mart chain shared that they are still in the testing phase but are planning to replace plastic with leaves nationwide very soon.

Aside from wrapping vegetables and fruits, the grocery chain intends to also use the leaves for fresh meat products.

Customers have since been applauding the effort.

“When I see vegetables wrapped in these beautiful banana leaves I’m more willing to buy in larger quantities,” a local customer named Hoa was quoted as saying. “I think this initiative will help locals be more aware of protecting the environment.”

According to VN Express, the use of the leaves as packaging is a welcome addition to the numerous other efforts establishments in Vietnam are experimenting with to reduce plastic waste.

Big C, for instance, already offers biodegradable bags made with corn powder in its stores.

With Vietnam ranking number four in the world for the most amount of plastic waste dumped into the ocean, such efforts are of the utmost importance.

As a Vice report noted, banning or reducing single-use plastic bags in supermarkets is a growing trend in Asia.

Just recently, South Korea banned the use of disposable plastic bags, requiring supermarkets and other commercial establishments to provide recyclable containers to customers.

Singapore supermarkets have also been launching campaigns informing the public on the need to reduce plastic bag use. Meanwhile, Taiwanese shops have started charging for single-use plastic bags to discourage customers from using them.

Meanwhile, China has seen a 66% drop in plastic bag use in over a decade since banning the use of ultra-thin plastic bags in 2008.

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College Student Starts Free Lawn Service for Elderly

An Alabama A&M student started a free lawn service for the elderly and to teach younger kids about community service.

Rodney Smith, Jr., now runs “Raising Men Lawn Care Service” with “about 20 young men ages 7-17.” They cut lawns for the elderly, disabled, and single mothers.

It all started when he witnessed an elderly man mowing his lawn.

“It looked like he was struggling,” he said. “I was watching him and it just hit me. I could do something about it.”

Smith asked if they knew anyone who needed their lawn mowed. Friends gave him names and he wanted to mow 40 lawns by winter. He found a lawnmower on Craigslist and received it for free when he told the owner why he needed it.

Smith will receive his bachelor’s degree in computer science in May. He hopes to return to school to earn a master’s in social work.

“I want to go back and get my master’s in social work,” he explained. “All of this has made me want to do social work. I love helping people.”

The company visits clients every two weeks to make sure the lawn remains manicured.

“One lady had bone cancer and couldn’t afford to pay someone to cut her grass. So many people have fallen on hard times and it feels good to be able to help them,” he said.

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Pies taken from unlocked store, money and apology note left behind

Police in Missouri said someone took two pies from a store that was accidentally left unlocked while closed -- but the culprit left money and a note, making it an "after-hours transaction" instead of a burglary.

The Ballwin Police Department said the front door of Honey Baked Ham had apparently been left unlocked accidentally on Thanksgiving Day, when the store was closed for the holiday, and a customer who came inside the empty store in the afternoon called police.

Police found some cash on the counter and a note reading: "Happy Thanksgiving! No one was here, and we were in desperate need of pies. Left money, took pies. Thanks!"

"(Officers) responded, found the door open, searched the business," Officer Mike Burgoyne told KPLR-TV. "They didn't find anything inside the business but some money that was left and note that said two pies were taken because they were dire need of pies for Thanksgiving."

Police said the pie-taker would have had to go behind the counter and retrieve the pies from a refrigerator, which could potentially have led to trespassing charges, but the store declined to pursue criminal charges for the "after-hours transaction."

"Nothing else was missing. We believe $26 was left. Each pie cost $11. So, they even left money to cover the tax," Burgoyne said.

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A California Moving Company Will Move Domestic Abuse Victims At No Cost

Leaving an abusive home situation can be extremely difficult due to a myriad of obstacles, including financial abuse. One California moving company is aiming to help those in need by doing an awesome thing: providing free moving services. Meathead Movers, a company based in central California, has partnered with domestic abuse non-profit organization Good Shepherd to help victims escape their situations.

“Meathead Movers will work directly with the nonprofit to identify the abusive situations and provide moving services at no cost,” a spokesperson told LA Weekly. “Not only do these services help the victims of domestic abuse but they directly impact Meathead employees — consisting of predominantly young men who believe that real men don’t hit women, real men help those in need.”

Meathead Movers, which was founded in 1997 by student athletes, will donate their services on a monthly basis through Good Shepherd. From LA Weekly:

“We know how hard it is to pack up someone’s life and move it to a new location, but it’s unimaginable to think about a woman and her children trying to pack up all their belongings and flee before the abuser returns home,” said Aaron Steed, president and CEO of Meathead. “When we realized we had the resources to help provide a fresh start for these victims, we knew Good Shepherd was the perfect organization to connect us with those who need our services most.”

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Artist Removes Makeup from Glammed Up Dolls to Turn Them into Inspirational Real-Life Heroes

So many children grow up with a cherished toy that is a source of comfort and joy. The idea that these playthings can play a role in the development of our identity is something that artist Wendy Tsao chose to explore by remaking a series of manufactured dolls into portrayals of inspirational real-life women. Through her work in Child’s Own Studio, Tsao is familiar with the ins and outs of the toy industry, and was motivated to start this venture after coming across Sonia Singh’s Tree Change Dolls, a collection of Bratz dolls reformed into more natural and realistic models.

What little girl doesn’t have a beloved doll that they spend hours dressing up and talking to? Yet so many of the dolls that are currently available are overly sexualized, unrealistic versions of what a women really is, or instead are modeled after Disney characters and Hollywood actresses that “capitalize on the pull of fantasy and fiction to young consumers.” Tsao opted to create figures inspired by real women with stories of intelligence, strength, and courage. The idea behind the project is to emulate a woman who has made a difference in the world, simply by being themselves, proving to be a much better role model for little girls to strive for.

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The Staunch Book Prize is awarded to a novel in the thriller genre in which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered.

What are we looking for?

Well-written, exciting thrillers that offer an alternative narrative to stories based around violence to women. That doesn’t mean we’re just looking for thrillers that feature men in jeopardy instead, but stories in which female characters don’t have to be raped before they can be empowered, or become casual collateral to pump up the plot.

How we started

The Staunch Book Prize was launched to draw attention to the plethora of violence towards women in fiction, and make space for exciting alternatives. While women in the real world are fighting sexual abuse and violence, being harassed, assaulted and raped, or being murdered BECAUSE THEY’RE WOMEN the casual and endless depiction of females as victims or prey sits uneasily alongside their fight. Real rape survivors struggle to be heard, counted and believed, under-reporting of rape is rife, partly because victims fear being torn apart in court, and prosecutions continually fail. Meanwhile, in popular culture, women are endlessly cast as victims of stalking, abduction, rape and murder, for entertainment.

Not everyone feels the same about depictions of violence, of course, but we’re now firmly in the #MeToo and Time’s Up era, and since this prize launched, people from all over the world have contacted us to say that a prize like this is long overdue and that they’d given up on thrillers altogether  – until now. Their feedback on our shortlisted and winning novels has been tremendous. There is indeed a healthy audience for thrillers without violence towards women.

There’s another reason why the proliferation of fictional sexual violence and rape matters. A growing body of research (including the groundbreaking work by Staunch judge Dominic Willmott) finds that ‘rape myth’ beliefs feed into bias which results in jurors being reluctant to convict ‘ordinary’ men accused of rape as they don’t fit the idea of a rapist they’ve internalised. News stories focus on serial offenders and extreme cases of attacks by strangers, whereas most rapists are known to their victim – the boyfriend or ex. Fictional stereotypes of night stalkers, dark alley attackers, serial killers and menacing strangers are dangerously misleading when 90% of rapists are known to the victim and the majority of women murdered knew their killer. These images overwhelm and drown out the real facts, and received misinformation from news media and popular culture become the accepted ‘truth’. Jurors have been demonstrated to hold these misbeliefs and that this affects whether they will or will not bring a guilty verdict against the ‘ordinary’ guy in the dock. That this can so seriously affect justice for women is alarming, to say the least and must be addressed.

“What Staunch uncovered was a trove of thrillers that turn on complex social and political issues and make us feel their human urgency. This is not censorship, but permission to create intelligent entertainment.”             

-Joyce Thompson, shortlisted author 2018