What is Plastic Free July?
Plastic Free July is a global movement that takes place every year and helps millions of people be part of the solution to plastic pollution so we can enjoy cleaner streets, oceans, beautiful communities, and help to look after our wonderful planet.
Many different environment and plastic pollution related groups and organisations, including Plastic Free Communities run events and campaigns during Plastic Free July to help get everyone started on their journey to ditching single-use plastic. As a movement of nearly 1,500 organizations from all over the world, they have the power to let our communities, cities, and countries know that they can say no to single-use plastic!
From Kerry Sheahan, Community Leader for Plastic Free Clevedon:
“We are really excited to be bringing Plastic Free July to Clevedon! Its going to look a bit different this year, we had hoped to have a town wide month of all things Plastic-free; but we haven’t let Covid19 stop us, we have moved it all online!
We’ve got some great activities for all the family! Going plastic free can be really hard, but reducing our plastic use is easy, there are some great easy and quick wins which can have a huge impact; and we hope that by building a community to help support each other we can make a big dent in single-use plastic in Clevedon and get lots of people started on their plastic free journeys!”
What is Plastic Pollution?
Plastic Pollution is an issue that connects the environment with all parts of our society. It is essentially plastic where it shouldn’t be, in our oceans, on our beaches, in our green and community spaces, in our food, and recently in rain and in the air! So why is plastic pollution a problem?
Plastic is a truly amazing material. It is durable, cheap to produce, hugely versatile and lasts forever! Some plastic is useful and downright essential. Diabetics use it for their disposable syringes; arthritic patients have it for their replaced hips; and construction workers wear it to protect their heads. Without it we wouldn’t have computers, and mobile phones. Essentially it
is vital.
However, we are consuming it at staggering rates, and the very properties that make it so valuable to us, are what creates a huge problem environmentally. How we use plastic is the problem, the avoidable single-use stuff that’s everywhere, used once sometimes for seconds, that is then thrown away and persists in our environment indefinitely!
Head on over to the Plastic Free Clevedon Plastic Pollution Blog Series to find out more! (links in the Further Reading Section at the end of this post).
Who are Plastic Free Clevedon?
Plastic Free Clevedon is a group of local volunteers working to free where we live from single-use plastic, and help reduce the impact that our community has on the environment.
They began back in March 2019 and are part of the The Surfers Against Sewage Plastic Free Community Campaign which focuses on freeing where we live from single-use plastic. Together they are tackling avoidable, throw-away plastic, from our beaches, rivers and green spaces all the way back to the brands and businesses who create it. It’s not about removing all plastic from our lives. It’s about kicking our addiction to single-use plastic and changing the system that produces it.
Being a Plastic Free Community does not mean there is no plastic – it means we are starting work to turn the tide on plastic pollution. By pulling together different aspects of our community; collaborating and including everyone we hope to bring about the culture change we need to see.
More background on what the group have achieved so far can be found on their First Birthday Post and on their blog.
What is planned for Plastic Free July?
Plastic Free Clevedon have got a whole range of initiatives, campaigns and tips and advice to help everyone ditch single-use plastic this July and beyond!
Whether you are passionate about cutting down your daily plastic use; are a small local business or part of a community group and want help on your journey to ditching single us plastic; maybe you are wanting to say no to one single-use item this month; or go plastic-free(ish) in your whole home; for those of you new to the plastic free journey, and those who are old hat but looking for a fun community to help give you that added boost, they’ve got you covered!
Head on over to the Plastic Free July 2020 Page from the 1st July 2020 to find out about all the great things they have planned for us! Here’s the link: https://bit.ly/31tffJe Over the coming days and weeks they will be adding a whole range of things that you can do! Enjoy!
Activities include:
●Taking the Plastic Free July Pledge, and writing on the Pledge Wall sharing all about what you plan to do for Plastic Free July, and why. Share it on social media, with family and friends, get the word out there! https://padlet.com/plasticfreeclevedon/PledgeWall
● Visit the brand new individual action resources to get you started on your journey to saying no to single-use plastic;
● Follow Lizzie the brilliant beach clean coordinator on her Plastic Free July Journey;
● Win a bundle of plastic free goodies! A competition for children to make their favourite sea creature from single-use plastic that they find at home!
● Join in and surf the #WavesOfOptimism – Where you turn the windows into the biggest art installation Surfers Against Sewage have ever coordinated!
● Plus links to what other groups and organisations are doing, and much more as the month goes on
Further Reading and Links
- Plastic Free July 2020 with Plastic Free Clevedon: https://plasticfreeclevedon.weebly.com/plasticfreejuly2020.html
- Plastic Free July – Be Part of the Solution. In: Plastic Free July [Internet]. [cited 23 Jun 2020]. Available: https://www.plasticfreejuly.org/
- The Scale of Plastic Pollution. In: PLASTIC FREE CLEVEDON [Internet]. [cited 30 Jun 2020]. Available: http://plasticfreeclevedon.weebly.com/1/post/2020/06/the-scale-of-plastic-pollution.html
- The Impact of Plastic Pollution. In: PLASTIC FREE CLEVEDON [Internet]. [cited 30 Jun 2020]. Available:
http://plasticfreeclevedon.weebly.com/1/post/2020/06/the-impact-of-plastic-pollution.html - Plastic pollution and Climate Change, Two sides of the same coin. In: PLASTIC FREE CLEVEDON [Internet]. [cited 30 Jun 2020]. Available:
http://plasticfreeclevedon.weebly.com/1/post/2020/06/plastic-pollution-and-climate-change-two-sides-of-the-same-coin.html - Recycling, a Tool but not the Solution. In: PLASTIC FREE CLEVEDON [Internet]. [cited 30 Jun 2020]. Available:
http://plasticfreeclevedon.weebly.com/1/post/2020/06/recycling-a-tool-but-not-the-solution.html - Resusable – the only way to go! In: PLASTIC FREE CLEVEDON [Internet]. [cited 30 Jun 2020]. Available:http://plasticfreeclevedon.weebly.com/1/post/2020/06/why-alternative-materials-are-not-the-answer-to-single-use-addiction-reusable-is-the-way-to-go.html
- Solutions to the Pollution. In: PLASTIC FREE CLEVEDON [Internet]. [cited 30 Jun 2020]. Available:
http://plasticfreeclevedon.weebly.com/1/post/2020/06/solutions-to-the-pollution.html - Plastic Free Clevedon’s First Birthday
https://plasticfreeclevedon.weebly.com/blog/our-first-birthday - Plastic Free Clevedon Blog https://plasticfreeclevedon.weebly.com/blog
- Plastic Free Clevedon Pledge Wall https://padlet.com/plasticfreeclevedon/PledgeWall