Companies & Citizens
Did you know that 60-90% of marine litter is plastic? I will call on local companies to design and package their products with as little plastic as possible. For those who continue to use over-the-top packaging, I will take photos and share them with the #CleanSeas hashtag on social media to raise the pressure.
As part of my commitment to get drastic with plastic, I will stop using plastic bags for shopping and use a recycled bag or a basket instead. I will ask my friends and family to do the same. Marine litter harms over 600 species, including turtles who mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and eat them!
In bathroom shelves across the world lie toothpaste and facial scrubs packed with tiny plastic pieces that threaten marine life. Up to 51 trillion microplastic particles are already in our oceans! I will use an app, such as Beat the Microbead, to replace personal care and cosmetics products that contain microbeads and write to companies that are not using natural alternatives.
Each year the world throws away over 1 trillion plastic bags that kill animals, clog our rivers and pollute our oceans. I will monitor my own use of plastic for a week and commit to reducing it and call on leaders and shops I visit to switch away from plastic bags, cups, cutlery, straws and plates!
Each year, over 4 billion coffee cups head to landfill because the plastic lining means they cannot be recycled. I will bring my own cup for take-away coffee or tea which can be used again and again to help bring an end to this landfill madness.
I will organize a cleanup on the beach or the river bank with my local community and use the Trash Hunter App to see who is the biggest polluter in our area. We will then let the media know what we collected and make sure the trash is properly disposed of. Unless we act, by 2050, an estimated 99% of seabirds will have ingested plastic.
Let's join forces and advocate for a plastic-free workplace. Ask your cafeteria to use green cutlery and containers.
Keep Denmark Tidy, Keep the Archipelago Tidy (Finland), Landvernd (Icelandic Environment Association), Keep Norway Beautiful and Keep Sweden Tidy have joined forces to organize the very first Nordic Coastal Clean Up.
Action Idea Starters
If you don’t see any actions above that you want to commit to, here are some ideas to get you thinking about your own actionAt least 8 million tons of plastic leaks into the ocean each year. As well as using less plastic in the first place, we must make sure the remainder is properly disposed of. How?
Candies, cheese, even vegetables: more and more of our food is packed in plastic to keep it fresh until we use it. Then it goes in the trash, and could end up in the ocean. How can we reduce this?
From the 50 billion bottles of water being bought each year, 80% of the containers end up in landfill. We all need water, and it's handy in a bottle, but surely we can do much better than this!
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This campaign platform is open to governments, governmental entities, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, communities, the private sector and individuals who wish to commit to specific actions in support of the #CleanSeas campaign. By committing to an action you acknowledge that UN Environment may follow up with you about your commitment.
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