With the right innovation in alternatives to plastic, the right action and the right pressure on the right people in the right places, there is a very real chance that we can be bring the Plastic Age to an end.
This is the prize we have in our sights: talk about a golden opportunity. Granted, we’re not quite there yet – we haven’t entirely figured out what the ubiquitous material will be replaced with, and there are details ‘to be ironed out’, as they say. But we now have global consensus on the price of everyday plastic in the marine environment and that cost is just too great. We know that ocean plastic waste has catastrophic implications for sea life and for the food chain and can act as a vector for some of the most pernicious chemicals ever created. On 6 December 2017, all 193 UN member states signed a resolution to eliminate plastic in the sea. The signatory states resolved to monitor how much plastic they were dumping in the ocean and to explore ways of making the practice illegal.
In the UK, we also have an abundance of new legislation, targets and goals and a job to do, as a result. Everybody – and by that I don’t just mean us, the consumers, I mean every public body in the UK – has a plastic reduction target, from Buckingham Palace and Parliament, to the big corporates. These targets bring together a timetable of actions such as stopping the use of plastic straws (an entry level pledge), the promised introduction of the Bottle Deposit Scheme and the possible extermination of pests such as wet wipes.
TURNING UP THE HEAT
So, while we have reasons to be cheerful, some of the target goals are way off in the future. The government’s own environmental targets are set for 2042, by which time billions of tonnes of new plastic will have been created. So how do we turn these promises into action, add pressure for more to be done sooner, now, today?
This progress in international UN resolution and local legislation would simply not have been possible had the Plastic Age not run slap-bang up against the Activist Age. The activists are winning, and we need to keep it that way.
The power of collective action cannot be overstated. We must think of ourselves as global citizens and appreciate that we have agency and influence. Yes, we are consumers, but that’s not all we are, and we shouldn’t confine our ambitions just to buying better stuff; spending power is only one of the weapons we have at our disposal in the action on plastic. We have a lot more to give.
By tackling plastic at source in your own life, you’ve already made your mark in the global movement. But it doesn’t have to stop there. There’s a wealth of opportunity to amplify your action and add your voice, to get behind those campaigns and organisations that will apply the pressure where it is most effective.
When you’re deciding which campaigns to get involved with and where to put your name, and indeed your energy, it’s useful to have in mind the qualities that make for a successful movement. Look for campaigns and associations that are helping to collect data that’s feeding into global data sets on single-use plastic and toxins in the world’s oceans, and feeding back into the UN’s goals. Look for those that are creating an online community of change-makers with global ambassadors who will push the message out.
One of my favourite action groups is A Plastic Planet (aplasticplanet.com), co-founded by entrepreneur Sian Sutherland. A Plastic Planet’s campaign has a simple mission – to turn off the tap on plastics with four pillars of action: lobbying, education, media and industry.
Increasingly we’re witnessing the power of coming together and pooling our agency. In the Netherlands in 2015, a group of over eight hundred citizens got together to sue the Dutch government on the grounds that it had knowingly contributed to a breach of the 2ºC maximum target for global warming. The Hague ruled in their favour, ordering the Dutch government to take action to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent within five years. It was the first time a court had ordered a state to protect its citizens from climate change.
The ruling represented a major victory for citizen action, but it was also a sign that activism was switching up a gear. James Thornton, CEO of environmental law organisation ClientEarth, described the victory as ‘remarkable’. ‘A major sophisticated European court has broken through a political and psychological threshold,’ he said.
Could we, through group action, engineer a similar breakthrough on unnecessary plastic packaging, perhaps?
THE POWER OF SMALL AND LOCAL
I know only too well that time is a precious resource. You are probably already at full tilt, and can’t necessarily dedicate extra hours in your day to campaigning on this issue. But there are ways to sign up without adding significantly to your workload.
Start by signing a pledge to #BePlasticWise at Ocean Wise http://pledge.ocean.org.
Adding your voice to this and similar global campaigns also helps to remind you that you are part of a greater mission. Never underestimate the power of a simple petition, either.
Wrexham gardener Mike Armitage was so perturbed when he discovered that the teabags made by PG Tips, Britain’s biggest tea brand, which he had been putting on his compost heap, contained between 20 and 25 per cent plastic, he started a petition demanding change using the campaign website 38 Degrees, a UK not-for-profit political activism organisation. He quickly got 200,000 signatures, and sent it to Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever, who announced that they would design plastic out of their PG Tips teabags. So that’s one man, one petition and a spectacular outcome: ten billion fewer plastic teabags damaging our environment every year.82 Other teabag brands are now under pressure to follow suit.
WHAT TYPE OF ACTIVIST ARE YOU?
Many people are nervous about the term activist, or at least find it off-putting. Activism used to mean placard-waving and chaining yourself to fences, and there is still a place for this, especially when a specific site is being threatened.
But there is also a school of thought that suggests we should match our activism to our temperament. Sustainability expert Solitaire Townsend, herself the antithesis of the hair-shirt model, unwraps this idea in her book The Happy Hero. There’s even a profiling section where you can match your personality more specifically to different forms of activism. It’s a bit like dating for good causes, but the payoff is crucial. Townsend argues that if you do activism right, you’ll get the most spectacular kickback: it will make you happy.
If taking action on a cause that matters deeply to you makes you happier, you are more likely to stick at it, and less likely to suffer from activist ‘burnout’, which you are probably going to feel if you are swept up in an angry movement that doesn’t sit with your temperament.
How to be a Craftivist by Sarah Corbett has also helped me to reframe my idea of activism. As an introvert with very strong beliefs on climate change and social justice, Corbett found herself burned out from too many shouty protests. She realised she needed a different style of resistance, and embraced craftivism. A term coined by writer Betsy Greer, she describes it as ‘a way of looking at life where voicing opinions through creativity makes your voice stronger and your compassion deeper’. Corbett began embroidering messages on hankies asking for workers in the garment industry to be paid a living wage. She inserted them into the pockets of shareholders at AGMs for high-street big-brand FTSE 100 companies. As a result of Corbett’s quiet craftivism, the living wage was timetabled as an official motion.
I’m already starting to see creativity and pragmatism come together in fighting the plastic pandemic. There’s resistance in making a simple bag from recycled fabric to keep your bread in when you buy it unpackaged from the bakery, or sewing a simple pouch to keep reusable cutlery in your bag. If you know a heavy and unrepentant user of plastic cutlery, gifting them a hand-sewn cutlery bag is a non-confrontational way of getting them to engage. Embroider their initials on it, if you really want to push the boat out!
ADVENTURERS
You might want to plug into an expedition or activity that adds an adrenaline rush to your plastic protest.
Lizzie Carr has pioneered the ‘paddle against plastic’. She is a British adventurer who in 2016 become the first person to successfully stand-up paddle-board (SUP) the length of England along its connected waterways. She travelled 400 miles in twenty-two days, and plotted and mapped out plastic pollution along her route. Not only did she bring back a lot of evidence that increased our understanding of how plastic collects and travels in our waterways, but she has inspired hundreds of us to shakily get up on paddle boards. From here, the vantage point is particularly good when it comes to plastic-spotting, as you look directly out and over the water. Be prepared to build up some competency before you can start fishing out plastic!
What I like about the current crop of British adventurers and expeditioners is that they are also using their fight against plastic to raise the profile of women in science. Emily Penn is an ocean advocate and a veteran of epic voyages, who sets sail in summer 2018 on an expedition through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (see here) with a twenty-four-woman crew. They will make daily trawls for plastics and pollutants, and collect data for global data sets and scientific studies.
Places on similar 3,000-nautical-mile voyages that could be described as ‘challenging’ are available at https://www.earth-changers.com/sustainable-places/pangaea-exploration.
Let’s face it, they’re not for everybody, but it is worth following expeditions like this through social media and live Facebook links. The technology and communication of the ocean science community has come on in leaps and bounds, and connecting with what’s happening in the field (in this case, the place in the world where plastics have most densely accumulated) is an eye-opening reminder of the worldwide picture.
A PROBLEM SHARED IS A PROBLEM HALVED
You don’t have to venture far to turbocharge your plastic activism. Plugging into your local community is arguably the most valuable thing you can do to turn the tide. Think about how much you have scaled down your own plastic consumption during the course of reading this book, and beyond. You will have removed hundreds of needless plastic items from your life. Now imagine how you might persuade every friend, relative and neighbour to do the same. When you get talking and campaigning in local shops and businesses, from hairdressers to greengrocers, the gains have the potential to grow even more. All of these premises have behind-the-scenes plastics in their supply chain, waiting to be tackled. Many people will share your concerns, but may not know where to start.
This is the principle behind the Plastic Free Communities programme run by Surfers Against Sewage: https://www.sas.org.uk/plastic-free-communities/ Communities develop an action plan, with advice from the Surfers Against Sewage local representative. Through a series of meetings between residents and business owners, they talk out the issues, share suppliers of alternative plastic-free or compostable products, and even consider the waste and collection facilities in their local area. Once they have tackled the major points and developed a plan of action, they are awarded a coveted Plastic Free Community status and certificate.
The goal is to have 125 certified Plastic Free Communities by 2020. They are well on their way.
I visited the first Plastic Free Community in Penzance in Cornwall on a cold winter weekend at the end of 2017 along with almost the entire population of the village of Aberporth in Wales. The visiting residents of Aberporth included interested householders and cafe, shop and pub owners, who had made the seven-hour journey to Penzance to learn what it took to achieve plastic-free status. Plastic Free Community leaders in Penzance welcomed us all and together we toured the fine town, from the chip shop on the front to the bustling cafes. We talked straws, litter, tourism (both towns are tourist hotspots), engagement and a lot about single-use coffee cups. We swapped stories, ideas and – most importantly for the business owners – contacts of suppliers of innovative products that would release them from the burden of single-use plastics. And you know what? It was fun. A highly recommended day out. Six weeks later, Aberporth was officially awarded its Plastic Free Community certificate.
Now it’s time for your town, too.