End Plastic Pollution – Earth Day 2018 Campaign
What impact does drinking bottled water have on the environment? Plastic pollution water bottles…
Water-to-go is doing its part. Unless it has been incinerated, every piece of plastic ever made still exists; Reason? Plastic takes over 500 years to degrade! Over 70 billion (seventy thousand million) single use plastic water bottles are consumed annually in the US and Europe alone; National Geographic estimate that a maximum of 20% are recycled. That means that over 50 billion bottles go into landfill or end up in our oceans every year.
Fill up your bottle with oil to a fifth of its capacity to witness how much oil is used in manufacturing the bottle and shipping it to you! For every 1 litre of bottled water in your local supermarket, 3 litres have been used to make and ship it to you. By consuming bottled water you are contributing to killing over 1 million sea birds and 100,000 mammals annually, who die by ingesting or becoming trapped in plastic waste. Get water where you are certain of the quality by filtering it yourself, help reduce plastic waste and preserve natural resources by using a Water-to-Go reusable bottle and filter!
Water-to-Go supports initiatives to curb pollution in the earth and add to a green planet. From poisoning and injuring marine life to disrupting human hormones, from littering our beaches and landscapes to clogging our waste streams and landfills, the exponential growth of plastics is now threatening the survival of our planet. In response, Earth Day 2018 will focus on fundamentally changing human attitude and behaviour about plastics and catalysing a significant reduction in plastic pollution.
The strategy to End Plastic Pollution will:
- Lead and support the adoption of a global framework to regulate plastic pollution.
- Educate and mobilise citizens across the globe to demand action from governments and corporations to control and diminish plastic pollution.
- Inform and activate citizens to take personal responsibility for the plastic pollution that each one of us generates by choosing to reject, reduce, reuse and recycle plastics.
- Work with universities, school teachers and students to End Plastic Pollution.
- Work with other organisations and networks and make Earth Day 2018 a platform to End Plastic. Pollution by developing resources that others can use and build partnerships.
- Promote the work that cities and local governments are doing to tackle plastic pollution.
- Empower journalists across the globe to report on the problem and its emerging solutions.
Earth Day Network will leverage the platform of Earth Day, April 22 2018 and the growing excitement around the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day in 2020. We will work with key constituencies and influencers to build a world of educated consumers of all ages who understand the environmental, climate and health consequences of using plastics.
We will organise events in all continents of the world, build a global following and activate citizens to join our End Plastic Pollution advocacy campaigns.
In sum, we will use the power of Earth Day to elevate the issue of plastic pollution in the global agenda and inspire and demand effective action to reduce and control it.
Did you know that 300 million tons of plastic are sold each year and that 90% of that is thrown away?
Did you know that as plastic breaks down in our environment it can mimic human hormones and is linked to everything from breast cancer to early puberty? Is that what we want? Each segment of society bears the responsibility for this. Our corporations are making billions of dollars selling their products in disposable plastic containers but are refusing to take responsibility for what happens to the 100s of millions of plastic containers and bags that move through our global economy every single day.
Our governments are unable or unwilling to take the health risks of plastic seriously and are not moving to ban single-use plastics and non-recyclable products. And we are also at fault because we haven’t made the break from single-use plastics even though alternatives are now on the markets.
BBC Earth are also holding special Earth Day event in London that everyone can attend to learn more about the poignance of this day.
Apple Regent Street welcomes the team behind BBC Earth’s epic series Blue Planet II. You’ll meet Producers and Directors Kathryn Jeffs, Will Ridgeon and Rachel Butler as they share how technology brings us closer to natural environments. And they’ll discuss creating a positive environmental impact, including raising awareness over single-use plastic and banning drinking straws.
Governments need to work towards banning single-use plastics and help support a move to sustainable non-polluting, non-fossil fuel based alternatives. We call on you all to immediately phase out single-use plastics, support sustainable alternatives, and tackle the billions of tons of plastics that are already in our oceans, our streams, our wildlife, and ourselves.
Tell our global leaders that the world can’t take much more plastic. If enough of us get behind a global ban on single-use plastics, we can begin to heal our oceans, our wildlife, and our children.