the map village street editors

They float high in tree branches as little puffs of cotton, tumble into shore in frothy white wash and lace around seagulls’ necks like unloved homemade shawls. Plastic bags – they blow, wash and waste their way into countless nooks of our planet with disastrous results beyond that of visual pollution. If it weren’t for environmental crusaders like Currumbin-based business owners, Mark David-Tooze and his wife Belinda, plastic bags might be windswept further into our future than our environment can sustain. Instead, Mark and Belinda are seeing to it that their organic linen, hemp, bamboo and polyester Envirosax reusable shopping bags are reaching far-flung corners of the globe, carrying with them motivational messages about environmental sustainability.

If a voice is anything to go by, I believe Mark David-Tooze when he tells me he lives life at maximum speed. Through the phone line, his soft Welsh-tinted tones carry an energy that is infectiously motivating. “I like extreme things,” he admits with a warm chuckle, referring to his love of surfing and skiing. Add ‘launching a global eco business’ to his extremist list and it would sit quite neatly in amongst big waves and steep slopes.

Mark was working as a chemistry teacher when his wife Belinda established the reusable-shopping-bag company, Envirosax, from their home in Currumbin Valley in 2004. Plan A was to make it big from day one and Plan B was never written because the business boomed instantly, going abroad to Canada before it went local. The response, so far, has been extremely heartening – Envirosax today employs a staff of nearly 20 in offices in Currumbin on the Gold Coast and San Diego in America, with bags stocked in savvy stores all over the globe, from Australia, New Zealand, America and Germany, to Portugal, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and even Bangladesh.

“In the floods in Bangladesh two years ago, they say plastic bags were partly the reason the drains clogged up and caused flooding,” Mark explains. The toxic effect of plastic bags on the environment is extensive and well documented as they photodegrade, clog waterways and strangle wildlife. Each country has its own hideous statistics for plastic-bag use, with Australians reported to consume around 6.9 billion plastic bags each year –
that’s nearly one bag per person per day. Encouraging anti-bag stances are being witnessed around the world, as with Ireland’s introduction of a plastic bag tax in 2002, which reduced national consumption by a massive 90 percent.

Belinda was inspired to act when she considered the failure of green reusable upermarket bags to actually be reused. The idea was struck to create a lightweight, affordable, attractive, durable and portable bag that would conveniently fold up to the size of a piece of sushi. In Mark and Belinda’s minds, using eco-friendly reusable shopping bags instead of plastic bags is a culture that will evolve over time and Envirosax bags provide the perfect platform to spread the message of sustainability in a positive and practical way. Mark is using his knowledge and passion for the environment to initiate conversations with councils, charities, universities and school boards and drive debate at international sustainability conferences.

When asked why and when he started caring about the environment, Mark recalls growing up in Wales with his mother and living off the land, relying on vegie gardens and greenhouses instead of supermarkets. But he presumes his environmental astuteness was truly ignited when things suddenly became very personal. It was many years ago during his travels while he was living on a beach in Sri Lanka that he awoke to the planet’s fragility. “There I was, sitting on this beautiful beach after a morning surf and I saw some locals hacking away at the limestone reef in front of me to use as cement to build houses on the shore,” says Mark. “They were carving up my reef! I thought, soon there’ll be no reef to make waves, and all the animals living on the reef are going to die. And I had to ask myself, ‘Are you going to actually do something about this?’ It was personal.”

A keen surfer (his childhood dream was to follow the Beach Boys’ advice and go on a surfing safari in California), Mark did do something about it, choosing to study chemistry and become a passionate teacher. He dedicated the next 25 years to heading up science departments in schools in England and Australia, most recently at All Saints Anglican School at Merrimac on the Gold Coast. Mark made an impact by weaving environmental consciousness into the school philosophy and curriculum, initiating an annual student sustainability conference and helping design a state-of-the-art science centre built on principles of sustainability. Today, he counts his greatest achievement as giving back to the environment through education. “To think, over the years I’ve taught thousands of children in different schools and the lessons have always involved elements of sustainability and protecting the environment. I’ve had a chance to influence these hungry minds in caring for the planet and taking care of resources and, to me,
that’s a great achievement.”

While he still consults to schools, he’s abandoned the Petri dishes and Bunsen burners to work full-time alongside Belinda in Envirosax. When the company started three years ago, the overwhelming demands meant Belinda and Mark did the round-the-clock-shuffle, a delicate 24-hour foxtrot incorporating a global business start-up, Mark’s teaching job, a marriage and three young children (James, 10, Luci, 5, and Grace, 4). “My advice to others wanting to start a global business like ours is that you’ve got to be willing to work 24 hours a day,” explains Mark who counts ‘time’ or the lack of it as the most obvious challenge to their success. Dealing with international time zones meant Mark and Belinda were responding to overseas phone calls, email queries and media interviews whether the sun was up or down.

Motivation beyond the sleep deprivation came from the belief in what they were doing, the support from their children and the sanctuary they call home. Mark and Belinda have created a sustainable haven in Currumbin Valley, completely off the power grid, with orchards sprouting avocados, bananas, papayas and oranges, and gardens bearing organic vegies. To Mark, their solar-powered existence is the thing that keeps him motivated. “We never feel like giving it all up when things are tough because we enjoy what we’re doing and we love where we live. I just love looking out at the rainforest and not seeing another house or hearing anything but the sounds of birds.” Travel is also a major plus that keeps them all sane, even the kids. “We’re like gypsies, really” Mark says. Since he and Belinda met 18 years ago in Japan, they have been constantly on the move. “Even with the kids, we can say, ‘Pack your bags. In an hour’s time we’re going to America.’ They’ll say ‘Okay’ without blinking an eye.” Mark and Belinda are committed to seeing Envirosax evolve as a family affair, with the children already consulted around the kitchen table on fabric designs and other product ideas.

The immediate vision for Envirosax is to give back to the community. Aside from sponsoring more charities and community projects and launching a hearty eco-aware blog
on the company website, Mark sees education as the way he and Belinda can invest in the environment in the most positive, enduring and far-reaching way. “Education is everything,” Mark insists. “Unless you’re educated, you’re ignorant and that’s not the fault of the person.” Mark also knows that until environmental degradation personally affects each one of us, as it did him with his beloved surf break in Sri Lanka, people won’t be inspired to act. He and Belinda hope, for starters, an Envirosax bag in each person’s hand just might be the intimate, gentle and tactile reminder we all need that we can make a difference – just one less plastic bag per person per day.

Interview By Frances Frangenheim