Why should I ask my favourite brands to stop using plastic?
While plastic can be recycled, it often isn’t, leading to plastic pollution in oceans, rivers, and even our own bodies via the food chain. We need to stop producing and using single-use plastic items, except for where it’s absolutely necessary.
As individuals, we can make better purchasing decisions – but changes made by companies make it easy for everyone to go greener – whether they want to or not!
So ask your favourite brands why they’re still using plastic in their products or packaging. A single change made by a company can have as much effect as thousands of their customers making the same choice.
Action:
Ask your favourite brands why they haven’t swapped to paper-based or plant-based wrappers for their products, or why they are still using plastic when they don’t need to.
How do I get companies to stop using plastic?
Start by emailing or tweeting and see what kind of answer you get. The company may be enthusiastic – they may already be doing something about it!
Twitter is a good place to put pressure on companies because they don’t like negative publicity. But however you do it, make sure you’ve got your facts right, and be polite – there’s a person at the other end. Feedback from customer services and the social media team can be a valuable mechanism for convincing management to make the change!
If you don’t get anywhere, see if someone else has already created a petition. Change.org and 38 Degrees are good places to start, or, to petition the government, use the UK government petitions site. If a petition already exists, support it by adding your name, writing to the petition target, or offering help to the petition owner.
If no one else is already running a campaign, you could start your own petition on Change.org or a similar site. But to give it the best chance of success, first, ask yourself if you’re committed to following it through. The most powerful petitions are started by people who are really committed and have the time to meet the petition target in the real world and work together for solutions – like the campaign we’ve highlighted below.
Finally, consider getting together with others to organise a boycott of the product or even protest at the organisation’s headquarters or sales outlets.
Cut the plastic – an inspiring example of a great eco campaign
Ella Daish’s campaign to encourage supermarkets to make all their menstrual products plastic-free is a great example of a successful campaign.
Ella was working as a postal worker when she noticed the amount of rubbish on her delivery route. First, she took steps to reduce the amount of waste she produced in her daily life; one of the changes she made was switching to eco-friendly period products. But no one else seemed to be aware of the problem.
She decided to take on the suppliers and started her campaign, on Change.org, in early 2018.
Ella’s petition, which calls on supermarkets and manufacturers to cut the plastic from their period products, now has more than 230,000 signatures. Ella met with decision-makers from Procter & Gamble, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Boots, Morrisons, Aldi, Kotex, Lil-lets, Carefree, Lidl, Bodyform, Asda, Superdrug and the Co-op, and the campaign featured in the national news and international magazines.
As a result of Ella’s campaign:
- Sainsbury’s, Aldi, and Superdrug stopped producing plastic tampon applicators, which she says has prevented 17 tonnes of plastic from being produced annually
- Eco-friendly ranges of tampons, pads and reusable products are now available in most supermarkets, giving customers a greater choice
- Lil-Lets, Superdrug, and Morrisons developed and launched their own eco-friendly ranges
Photo credit: Adam Satria on Unsplash