Scientists
predict
that if we continue to consume plastics at the current rate, there may be more tons of plastic in the ocean than tons of fish by the year 2050.
The
Plastic Four
campaign was launched by Green Initiatives on the 18th July 2017 and runs for a month. The campaign aims to raise awareness on the negative impact on the environment and marine life that results from consumption of four common plastic products i.e. plastic bags, disposable cups, straws and bottles.
(Source: Green Initiatives)
1. Why did Green Initiatives decide to launch this campaign?
We hope that our community can experience first hand how much unnecessary plastic is being used on a day-to-day basis, and how deeply they are engrained in our lives. By replacing or reducing these commonly used plastic products with reusable containers or bags, as well as limiting our purchases we are trying to inculcate positive and less-wasteful habits in individuals, and have them realize that they are a part of the very environment that they are polluting.
The campaign also provides us an opportunity to understand the challenges faced by the community in reducing these wasteful products from their lives.
(Source: Earth Touch News Network)
2. How many pledges has Green Initiatives collected so far? How much plastic has saved so far?
The campaign has been received very positively – it shows that the community shares our concerns and wants to do something about it as a collective. So far we have received nearly
5000 views on the campaign wechat posts and around 275 pledges in two weeks
. This translates to an approximate reduction of:
-
13,383 straws
-
9,740 plastic bags
-
2,956 plastic bottles
-
11,458 plastic cups
To us this (high number of views, low number of pledges) clearly highlights one fact: that people recognize the problem, are also interested in doing something about it, but eliminating it from their lives for a month seems challenging, possibly impossible, to most. Further, the numbers only reinforce that a small group of committed people can acutally bring about tangible impact.
(Source: Healthy Materials Lab)
3. What is the general feedback from the community?
The most common feedback we have received is that they have found it extremely challenging to eliminate this waste from their daily lives. Plastic products, especially these few types, are so deeply connected with all aspects of our lifestyles that very often people receive these plastics in their transations without even asking for it.
Plastic bottles in companies, both for clients as well as staff consumption is a big issue. Some users informed us that their companies have no water filters or water cans – they solely rely on small bottled water for their supply which we believe is extremely careless.
Take for example a straw. People may order a drink or a cocktail, but the straw comes almost naturally with it, unasked. In order to avoid it people have to emphasize to the waiter several times to not give them a straw, while ordering their drink.
Another example is the disposable cup. While placing an order in places like Wagas (most commonly complained location) people have requested to not be served in a disposable cup and be served in regular, reusable cups. However, either they still get served in disposable cups or are told that there is no other option. So people either not buy a beverage, or drink them in a disposable. Some resist, but quite a few give up (considering we are facing some serious summer in Shanghai).
4. Many people may embrace the idea but feel reluctant to change their lifestyle and hard stick to the idea,
as plastic has been a part
for
their life and it does cause inconvenience in some cases. How are you going to approach
these audience
? What suggestion do you have?
We are aware that most of the people, unfortunately, still find it difficult to replace plastic cups and bottles with the reusable containers as it has already become part of their daily routine to be served with branded plastic packaging.
However, we believe that, if we spread the message of how a big impact every individual is able to make just by changing these simple habits, it may lead to a significant number of responses. The more people become involved in this campaign and share it with their friends, the greater awareness shall be achieved.
A point that we would like to highlight here is that unlike most other campaigns we previously implemented, this campaign is particularly challenging. Our focus is not on the final number of pledge we receive but on encouraging people to try to be less dependant on such common plastics in their lives.
To us, pledging and failing is okay. NOT trying is not. The former shows that people truly care, and want to try.
Only when you try do you realize the gravity of a problem.
The Following are how we are encouraging the campaign followers to reduce these plastics:
-
Carry a cloth bag and buy fruits and vegetables from the local wet market instead of going to the supermarkets (since supermarkets veggies and fruits come heavily packaged).
-
Instead of having to buy coffee in a disposable cup every day, we suggest bringing a reusable coffee mug.
-
Replace plastic bottles with a reusable bottle and carry and refill whenever we see a water dispenser.
Finally, we can avoid plastic straws by using our lips or reusable stainless steel straws and by telling to the restaurants and cafes in Chinese that we don’t need them.
We have also developed some simple visuals for people to keep on their phones and show to whoever they are purchasing stuff from.
(Source: Green Initiatives)
5. What inspired Green Initiatives to start this campaign?
We were inspired to launch this campaign from the Plastic Free July global campaign that originated in Australia, www.plasticfreejuly.org. However, it is an open source campaign that anyone can implement in any part of the world, there’s no other formal or legal tieup.
6. What is the biggest challenge to localize Plastic Free Challenge and promote it in China?
Localizing itself is indeed the biggest challenge. While some behaviors are common across the globe now (single use takeaway cups) some challenges are more unique to a certain region. Thus, the tips and practices need to be regionalized and the content needs to be translated into Chinese, if we need to increase our impact. Further, being a volunteer-run campaign it’s a challenge to constantly generate new content, activate the community, translate content, promote in different platforms, engage with the audience, etc.
For example, in China street snacks/small breakfast items served in single use, thin plastic bags are very popular. But how do we encourage people to reduce that? We ourselves don’t have any efficient or ‘convenient’ solution to that. There’s no biodegradable plastic alternative to that at the local level yet.
The situation is the same with the increase in food takeaway apps and services that deliver food in plastic ‘waimai’ containers. This generates millions of plastic containers being thrown away each day. One can carry an empty box from home, or cook more often, or something else, but people still find that very inconvenient in their increasingly busy lives.
Popular food takeaway apps: Baidu Waimai and Ele.me
Plastic containers from food takeaway at the Lantau beach in HK. (Source: Sixth Tone)
To us it seems like the life of low waste or low plastics is simply a choice between taking an extra step, a little more effort, than doing something convenient. Higher amount of waste that we generate is inadvertently linked to a higher level of convenience that we seek.
7. From the top-down aspect,
Chinese government launched the ban on plastic bags in 2008 which bans supermarkets from giving free plastic bags to customers. What are Green Initiatives’ thoughts on this policy?
When we take into consideration that 500 billion plastic bags are used globally each year (= 1 million bags used every minute), we cannot but strongly support such actions from the Chinese government. According to the government estimation, since this policy became active in 2008, China reports 66 percent drop in plastic bag use, which is already 40 billion bags reduction.
As we all know, plastic bags are made of fossil fuels and fresh water. For 100 billion bags, we spend 1 billion kilogram of fossil fuel and 15 billions litres of fresh water. Taking this into consideration, China is not only on a great path of saving the environment but also its natural resources, and both are significantly important for China’s future development plans.
Food served by a street vendor. (Source: web search)
However, these changes are also the result of the price factor, rather than merely for environmental protection.
What is missing in a big way is consumer awareness, mainstream solutions, alternatives to plastics, as well as encouragement or stimulus to come up with new solutions. People simply do not connect the dot. They simply do not see how big the plastic problem is, how it hurts the environment and marine life, how a deteriorating environment or plastics in marine animals affects their health, how their actions negatively impacts nature, or how or why they ought to adopt better lifestyle habits and practices.
In order to change this, we hope for better educational programs in schools and companies, starting as early as possible is extremely important, and more smart government policies are needed to curb plastic pollution in places beyond supermarkets – be it online shopping or food takeaway systems, in companies – water filters and reusable cups should be encouraged, or even in tourist locations – imagine if we could have public water taps like in Europe?
8. Any final thoughts? Any solutions Green Initiatives thinks that may work?
There is no clear, simple or straightforward solution. Yet, we strongly believe that starting with better education and demonstrating simple ways on how people can do better is just one small step in the right direction. This is exactly the goal of our action campaigns.
Lastly, the campaign is now in its final week. It’s not too late to participate. Scan the QR code below or click on this link to visit our campaign page to learn more about how to participate.
If you have any feedback or comments on the above article please send us an email at
[email protected]
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