These tasty celebrity-chef recipes all contain a secret ingredient

Add grated plastic straws and shredded water bottles to taste.

The above would be a strange and disturbing instruction to find in a recipe. But it's exactly what happens in a series of videos appearing across 11 APAC countries on the Asian Food Network (AFN).

The campaign, by Grey Malaysia, has 20 spots in all. This includes clips featuring AFN celebrity chefs Sarah Benjamin (frying spicy clams with shredded plastic cup), Sherson Lian (making oyster porridge with chopped plastic plate) and Debbie Wong (baking soy sauce sea bass with granulated straws), as well as DIY-style videos.  

Part of an ongoing 'Your plastic diet' initiative that Grey Malaysia launched last year (see "Here's what you might eat in plastic every week"), the work launched this week and will appear in Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. 

The spots call on people to join a movement to lobby governments about plastic pollution policies, which according to the WWF has become its largest and fastest-growing movement in history—with 1.6 million people in 180 countries supporting.

Ad Nut, always a sucker for subversion of format, commends this work. It's a great use of the network's talent to grab attention for an important issue. Ad Nut also appreciates that the thrust of the WWF initiative is to influence public policy. While it's all well and good to guilt people into giving up plastic straws, nothing short of massive government pressure is going to lead to the pervasive changes we need to make—not only on the plastic problem but all across the environmental spectrum.

CREDITS

Grey
Graham Drew, Executive Creative Director
Andrew Fong, Creative Director
Heng Thang Wei, Creative Director
Selva Ganapathy, Copywriter
Kevin Wong, Art Director
Ralve Khor, Art Director
Suzy Chiang, Producer
Jo Yau, General Manager
Marcus SK, Brand Director
Vivian Khoo, Account Executive
Huma Qureshi,  PR & Corp Comms APAC

Production
MFX Sdn. Bhd.
Post Production
Glass Fin (KL)
Sound Production
Maverick AV Sdn. Bhd.

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