What is your current involvement? (community level and/or global level)
We are currently focused on our action campaign, right now centered on educating and activating people around the plastic microbeads issue. In 2012, we conducted the first research on plastic pollution in the Great Lakes with Dr. Sam Mason from SUNY Fredonia, and found alarming quantities of plastics in Lake Erie that we traced back to personal care products. After 2 years of hard work, and involvement from many NGOs, we helped pass a bill in California to ban the sale of products that contain microbeads. There is also a Federal microbeads ban on the table, HR 1321, that just passed the US House of Representatives.
While this news is incredible exciting, the phase out time for companies is still a few years away, and most consumers are not aware of this issue, meaning trillions of toxic beads will flush into our waterways in the meantime. So we are launching a campaign in early 2016, with a microbeads toolkit providing people with several key actions they can take to prevent plastics from contaminating our waters. Our goals are both to keep millions upon millions of new microplastics from entering our lakes and oceans, and to engage people in taking action on plastic pollution.
Supporting our action campaign, we are also continuing our work to inspire leaders, through developing our AmbassadorShip training program for people who want to take an active role on plastic pollution solutions. Many of our ambassadors have spent time at sea with us – in 2016 we are taking a small group of citizens to do first hand research on ocean plastics in the Arctic. Once people engage with this issue first hand, they are inspired to return to their communities as active change agents.
We are also working to engage youth. In 2015, we held a 3-day youth summit in the Bahamas, to inspire local leadership on plastic pollution solutions. In 2016, we are working in partnership with the Kokua Foundation, started by Jack and Kim Johnson, to hold a youth summit in Hawaii around the time of the IUCN World Conservation Congress. Our goal here is to inspire leadership, and provide youth with opportunities to engage with a major international policy event.
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