By: Natalia Trita Agnika

"Want to save trees, why are you clapping? Why don't you use your hands to dig holes and plant trees?" Those are the questions that might come to mind when reading the title above. It does sound strange when clapping your hands turns out to help save trees. Of course, the clapping in question is not just any clapping.

The clapping that supports efforts to save the forest is the activity of clapping 30 times when we finish washing our hands. After clapping 30 times, the water on your hands will be reduced by 80%. The remaining 20% water will dry on its own. Drying your hands in this way can reduce the use of paper towels.

Usually, after washing hands, people will use paper towels to dry their hands. Have you ever wondered how many paper towels people use just to dry their hands? Just look at the toilets in public areas such as malls, cinemas, restaurants, stations, or airports. Sometimes, without feeling guilty, people take three to five sheets of tissue just to dry their hands. In fact, the habit of using tissue excessively can contribute to reducing the number of trees in the forest.

Based on the results of a survey conducted by WWF-Indonesia in collaboration with Hakuhodo, it appears that Indonesians who live in big cities (around 54% of Indonesians live in big cities) have a habit of using three sheets of tissue to dry their hands. If 54% of the 255 million Indonesians living in urban areas use three sheets of paper towels to dry their hands after washing, imagine how many trees are cut down for our paper towel consumption.

Globally, WWF estimates that every day, around 270,000 felled trees end up in the trash. And 10% of that number comes from toilet paper. It's time we change that environmentally unfriendly habit by participating in the #30ClapsChallenge campaign and making it a new habit.

The #30ClapsChallenge campaign is a movement initiated by Hakuhodo Creative Agency and WWF to encourage the public to reduce the use of paper towels after washing their hands and make it a new habit and spread it to others. By reducing the use of paper towels, we are not only saving the forest, but also saving the animals that live in it such as elephants, tigers, and orangutans. In addition, saving the forest means saving lives.

Let's get in on the action!

Make a video of you doing the #30ClapsChallenge as creatively as possible. Tell us why you're using less paper towels and saving trees and upload it to your social media accounts (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Campaign) with the hashtag #30ClapsChallenge #wwfid. Don't forget to tag @WWF_ID and your friends. Challenge them to do the same. The video can be made individually or in a group.

In addition, the public can also make donations for reforestation programs in Sumatra's forests through kitabisa.com/thirtyclaps. Donations collected during the #30ClapsChallenge campaign will be used for tree planting through the MyBabyTree program.

[Watch: Video #30ClapsChallenge]

Where once the accumulation of tissues we used represented the number of trees cut down, now the accumulation of our claps represents the number of trees saved. Use less paper towels, plant more trees. Let's clap to save trees for the future.