Creating Awareness

The first step in solving the plastic pollution problem is to create awareness across the full lifecycle of plastic:

• Understanding the real problem: Microplastics never go away and are everywhere around us:
  • In plankton the oceans worldwide – plankton is at the start of our food chain. Plankton is responsible for ±60% of the carbon dioxide absorption capacity of our planet. The functioning of plankton has reduced with about 40% in the past 15 years. This has an impact on climate change.
  • Plankton is also responsible for 60-70% of the oxygen production on our planet: the oceans are our lungs.
  • Microplastics impact biodiversity on land and in the oceans, killing marine live and other animals.
• Being aware of the impact on our health: Microplastics are in the air and in our bodies, threatening our health. More research is needed to understand the impact on the unborn child, our hormone system and brain diseases.
• Avoiding the problem: burning waste to energy and plastic recycling are not the solution. We need to rethink our economy and our consumption behavior: start ‘upstream’ in a holistic way, reduce the use of new plastic and create a new plastics circular economy, becoming ‘regenerative’ for all materials and resources.

Awareness materials

• Stop using single-use plastics and try to buy less plastic products or use Bring Your Own bag or bottle.
• Apps can support you to use less plastic: download the ‘My Little Plastic Footprint’ app or the ‘Beat the Microbead’ app.
• Clean your environment, have fun and win a prize by using the Plastic Bingo app.
• Create awareness with family and friends: e.g. tell everybody to use 2 plastic pieces less per day. By doing that we use almost 9 Billion pieces of plastic less per year! (2 x 10 family, friends x 1,2 million Rotarians x 365 ).