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A group of young Bahraini entrepreneurs, who won INJAZ Bahrain’s High School Company of the Year award in 2017 for their eco-friendly grocery bag business, are thrilled that the kingdom has begun banning plastic products and are set to create a new line to support the environmental cause.
Machla, which is an old Bahraini term meaning foodstuff or weekly grocery shopping, is a start-up venture created by former Ibn Khuldoon National School students Turki AlQahtani, Munya Saeed, Khalid Abdulaziz, Jawaher AlKhalifa, Daij AlKhalifa and Ali Ajoor, to “make a positive social impact” in the kingdom.
“We wanted to invest our time and effort into a product that had long life usage and would affect both the user and the Bahraini society in a positive way,” said Turki, 19, Machla’s head of marketing who is studying marketing management at the University of Sussex in the UK. “We researched and discussed different initiatives as a team that we could implement. In the midst of our discussion, we talked about how stores in the UK charge customers an extra fee for providing plastic bags, encouraging customers to minimise buying plastic and re-using their own bags that they previously bought or even bringing their own reusable bags.
“We knew that reusable bags were already being sold in Bahrain by multiple sellers, but we believed they were rarely being used at the time.”
The students conducted a market research featuring more than 100 participants to find out whether people were even offered to purchase alternatives to pesky plastic and found that the majority did not.
“We concluded that the available alternative bags were missing out on added personal benefits and may have been inadequate,” added Turki who lives in Sanad. “We knew that if we invested the time and effort to provide customers a new type of substitute that was both stylish and beneficial, more would be encouraged to take the eco-friendly route and avoid using plastic. As our slogan says, ‘choose to re-use’.”
Machla features four bags, all ranging in size and in different colours, that are connectable and easily split once loaded. The bags are produced out of Jute, which is a plant or fibre that is used to make burlap, hessian or gunny cloth. Jute is one of the most affordable natural fibres and is composed primarily of the plant materials cellulose and lignin.
The extra-large bag is green, the red bag is large, the yellow is medium and the blue bag is small and includes insulated material to keep cold products cool. The eco-conscious team also added palm tree patterns on the bags to represent the kingdom’s rich culture and heritage. After all, Bahrain is known as the island of a million palm trees.
According to Turki, it’s not just eco-friendly to use but also simple and efficient, making shopping a breeze.
“The user simply hangs the wrapped up Machla set on the back of the cart, rolls it open in the cart and then shops as usual. The beauty of the set is that shoppers can now separate groceries into four different sized bags to make it easy to load and unload.
“For instance, large items such as towel rolls can be placed in the Green Machla bag. Smaller items such as fruits and vegetables in the Red and Yellow Machla bags and cold items such as ice cream can go in the Blue Machla bag. The customer then can choose to separate the bags from the point of encounter with the cashier or take the trolley to his or her car. When reaching home, the shopper only has to carry four bags into his or her home. What was once a grocery trip that ended with loading and unloading a large number of easily tearable plastic bags is now reduced to four durable and environmentally friendly bags.”
Although the anti-plastic friends had stopped working on the start-up after jetting off to university, they are delighted to hear that their bags were still being used.
Turki said: “We were happy to see that people are still using our bags today in their own unique way! Its durable quality, stylish look and separation feature allows them to be multi-purposed. A user can separate the Green Machla bag and use that individual bag when carrying items to the beach for instance.”
When the ban on plastic was announced in the kingdom, the environmentally sustainable squad started planning their second batch of bags.
“We are all beyond happy that the plastic ban was implemented,” said Turki. “Seeing this step being taken in Bahrain is a great initiative and is a clear sign that people should rely more on using environmentally friendly alternatives in other areas as well.”
The ban comes in line with the directives of the Government Executive Committee - chaired by HRH Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister and following the Ministerial Committee for Urbanization and Infrastructure’s order number (7-731-2019) regarding regulating and reducing plastic usage.
The chief executive of the Supreme Council for Environment (SCE), Dr Mohammed Mubarak Bin Daina, had noted that the Ministerial Order Number (11) for the year 2019, with respect to the technical regulations for plastic products, would come into effect at the end of July.
This has allowed the kingdom to join a number of leading countries in banning the import of plastic waste, following the United Nations’ call to mitigate ocean pollution and climate change.
The first phase will focus on single-use plastic bags as well as banning the import of non-biodegradable plastic bags. Later stages will feature a permanent ban on the use of plastic bags at certain malls and supermarkets.
After SCE conducted an intensive market research on Bahrain’s plastic production, it discovered that 40 per cent of household waste is plastic-waste. The SCE has implemented measures to expand the number of recycling businesses by increasing the total number of recycling bins to help reduce plastic waste that ends up in landfills.
The new set of bags is still in the production process and the team is not taking pre-orders at the moment. However, people can find out more by following
@machla.co on Instagram.
“We hope to continue having a positive impact in Bahrain, whether it be by encouraging users to choose environmentally friendly alternatives or by contributing with corporate social responsibility activities as we have previously done through beach clean ups and donations to charity.
“Everyone can play a role no matter how small it may be, in making a difference because as a collective, our joint effort ensures an imminent positive social impact.”
