Post 429 - Parliamentary Polluting Plastic Petition Update

Hi Everyone, just a quick couple of updates. I saw this article from the Guardian today on twitter which really sums up why this is important.

Plastic waste dumped in UK seas 'carried to Arctic within two years

Also - much quicker than I expected, my Thunderclap has been processed - so if you want to spread the word about the plastic petition to help tell big co's that we don't want plastic packaging then please sign up and retweet it.

Thunderclap - Polluting Plastic Packaging

Thanks,

Z

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Hi Everyone, Post 429 today and now the fantastic #30daywild is finished (but I hope you all get to #staywild :-) I thought I'd go back to something I started on Day 8 of 30 Days Wild.

In an email I had from the Wildlife Trusts one of the ideas for June was to be an environmental champion. Well you might remember that I do little clean ups when I am on my travels, especially any plastic to try and stop it getting to the sea and hurting wildlife. I also don't like litter and wish people wouldn't drop it!

I haven't had to do lots of litter picking lately as most places I've been to have been quite tidy, which is nice. I also saw on Springwatch that the #2minbeachclean team are starting to encourage people to pick up litter on land too so it doesn't get to the seas, by being blown in to streams and rivers, in the first place. So its the same idea as my #cleanfornature - just spend a bit of time when you go out picking stuff up and binning it or recycling it.

@BBCSpringwatch @2minbeachclean Not near beach so did #2minbeachclean in the countryside instead. 😊

— Sally Lamb (@sally_lamb1) 11 June 2016

You might remember too that I asked McDonalds if they would use less plastic in their packaging. I asked this as I saw a nature reserve next to one of their restaurants where cups and sauce pots, were left all over the place. I was really pleased that they said they are going to do more litter picks around the reserve to help tidy it up, just shows one little voice can encourage big companies to do good things (big thanks too to McDonalds). Changing the packaging was more difficult for them though, they weren't going to do that yet but they might when they do reviews of their products.

Brilliant Brewery Makes Biodegradable, Edible Six-Pack Rings That Feed Marine Animals https://t.co/1X3lErpkpo pic.twitter.com/zQ9oK8rfhR

— One Green Planet (@OneGreenPlanet) 16 May 2016

So to try and show them that lots of people would like them to use less plastic, or use biodegradable packaging, like in the brewery example, I thought I'd start a petition. Well I filled out all of the forms and got five people to support me so I waited for the government to see if my petition was OK. Sadly they said it wasn't but only because there was a similar petition already.

Trouble is this one only has 21 signatures so far - well it will be 22 in a bit when I sign it. So my next step is to try and get people to support this petition so that we can show big companies that lots of their customers want them to stop using plastic packaging.

This is the petition - Ban all non-biodegradable packaging from being used - a bit simpler than mine but just what I was trying to say.

So I'm going to try and get a few more people - hopefully a lot more to sign up to it too. That way maybe we can show big companies that their customers care about this issue and start using different packaging.

I shall have some help with this too as @DebbieHyde7 has already been in touch and is keen to do something about plastic too. We'll be working on getting this petition some more signatures and then think about how we can try to get some companies to support us too. I'll set up a Thunderclap as well to try and spread the word about the petition which I hope all of you reading this will sign up to and help spread the word.

There's a lot of organisations I'll get in touch with too see if they will help out like Zilch, Keep Britain Tidy, Plastic Free Tuesday.

And if any one else wants to help out of has any ideas then please get in touch.

Hope you enjoyed,

Z.