Terrifying Chinese Privet: Kyiv restaurant decorated with garbage

On the eve of Halloween, celebrated around the world on October 31, all restaurants, cafes, and shops are decorated with scary decor, ghosts, monsters, witches, and other undead.

Misha Katsurin and Dasha Katsurina, Kyiv restaurateurs and founders of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai Privet restaurants, took it a step further and decorated the restaurant with … garbage.

Instead of the usual decor, the restaurateurs decorated the facade of the Chinese Privet restaurant with used plastic and garbage bags. They decorated the interior with used soft toys, which will get a new life and go to orphanages after the holiday.

It turned out that restaurants and stores spend hundreds and hundreds of thousands of hryvnias on meaningless holiday decor, which will still go to the dump in a week.

According to official data from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, Ukrainians generate about 11 million tons of solid household waste annually, which is 250-300 kg per person per year. Only 3% is recycled, slightly less than 3% is burned, and less than 1% is composted. Everything else (which is 93% of waste!) is taken to landfills. We don't want to add a couple of tons to it, do we?

This time, all the decor from the Chinese Privet will be recycled, because this plastic was already in use, and after Halloween, it will go to the NOWASTE UKRAINE station.

"Have you ever seen restaurants decorated with garbage? That's right, and I didn't see such a thing.

We decided that ghosts and skeletons are not scary, and plastic in the ocean is scary. Taking advantage of the holiday, we decided to remind each other of the terrible phenomena that surround us every day. And to suggest that each of us can influence the situation to the best of our ability," Misha says.

Also, in honor of Halloween, the restaurant offers guests traditional postcards with an unconventional message: to remember what is genuinely scary, such as hunger, violence, and pollution of the planet. Boo!

The project was created in collaboration with decorator Anna Bahonko, illustrator Olha Lievina and NOWASTE UKRAINE.