Author note: this project has been selected for Earth day 2018 by Local Guides
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Introduction
Plastic products have changed our life, in a positive way.
Easy to produce, at low cost, plastics is used in most of the products that we are using in our life: from shopping bags to cars and computers, from markers to kitchen tools.
Colorful and light, plastic products are filling our life of happiness.
Easy to produce, plastic products are used in important fields, like automotive, computers, agriculture, medicine, and many others.
Disposable syringes and surgical products, made in plastic, are saving our life everyday.
Plastic products have changed our life, in a negative way.
Easy to produce, at low cost, they are frequently thrown away after use
Plates, glasses, bottles and plastic bags are constantly abandoned, thrown away. Because of the low cost, it is not worthwhile to recover them.
Abandoned in the environment, the lightweight plastic products are transported by wind and rain, to get into the rivers, and finish their journey in the oceans.
The action of the wind, rain and waves, shatters the plastic into small pieces, which float on the water.
Birds and fish swallow the colored pieces of plastic, which can not be digested and accumulate in their stomach. The fish enter the plastic bags, and they can not get out.
Ocean Gyres helps in accumulating the plastic garbage, in what is known as the ”Great Pacific garbage patch”
Plastic pollution has become one of the great dangers for our planet
Fighting plastic pollution can become a major objective for Local Guides
Want to know how? Keep reading
Local Guides clean the world - outline of a project
Five targets for Local Guides (plus one) - A “one year long” project
Step 0 - A logo for a new project
This is a special Project for Local Guides World, we will do a lot of different activities, all under the same flag: #LocalGuidesCleanTheWorld
For me, it is important to give a way to easily identify the activities related to Environment and Pollution, mostly Plastic Pollution, that we will run this year.
With this idea in my mind, I started a contest for inventing a new logo - Local Guide Contest: a logo for a new project. The logo has been voted, and now we already have it.
A logo that you can use for every activity related to this project, in Meet-ups, GeoWalk, documents, T-shirts. You can download the logo here
Step 1 - Education
(read here for more)
A lot of people is unaware of the problem. Local Guides can be a good education/information channel, organizing Meetups with students, explaining the danger of plastic pollution and showing them how easy is to collect and recycle plastics. Local Guides are students and teachers, children and parents (with some Grandparents too)
- we can prepare educational material, to be used in the school
- We can organize activities in the school, for teaching children about the 3R concept (Reduce - Recycle - Reuse)
- We can run “Educational Meetup”
- In High school, we can invite students to Develop a search about plastic pollution
They can be invited to step 2 and 3
It can be interesting to have Local Guides working together for preparing educational / informative documents
Step 2 - Documentation
Photowalk meetups, or even individual photowalk, are welcome. The aim is to collect documentation of polluted areas, like roads, rivers, public parks, beaches, mountains (I am thinking about all the the material abandoned by climbers) that can be the a target for the step 3. Photo albums will be linked to a worldwide “Mymaps of plastic pollution”
Photos to be shared in social channels, with the hashtag #LocalGuidesCleanTheWorld
Step 3 - Actions
- Clean the planet - Volunteer meetups, for cleaning selected areas, identified in step 2.
Also non Local Guides are invited to be part of the event. Local Guide program to be shared. Photos and videos needed - Cleaning around the school with the Local Guides, with a picnic / party at the end of the day, in a cleaned place
- Adopt a Place - Volunteer meetups, for keeping a specific area monitored and clean
- Social cleanup - Cleanup the yard of an old person or someone who you know who can’t look after themselves
All the Recaps will be linked to the worldwide “Mymaps of plastic pollution”
Step 4 - Publication
Build up of aMymaps of plastic pollution, showing the identified areas, as per step 2, and highlighting the cleanup actions.
For every place we will provide:- A selected photo, loaded in Mymaps
- A link to a photo album of the place / event
- A link to the recap post in Connect
Mymaps to be shared in social channels, with the hashtag #LocalGuidesCleanTheWorld
Step 5 - Best practice
(here is the thread) with also the Related Media News
Positive example of cities / countries that are fighting plastic pollution.
Sharing positive example of Recycle or Reuse of products and materials can push people in doing the same. In this way we can have contributions also from Countries that have already started to solve the issue:
- Meetups, for visiting Recycling factory, with interview
- Videos, “how do we handle Recycle in our daylife”
Five step - One year of activities
Follow the links for the posts related to every step
- Logo (download )
- Education
- Documentation (Link to Mymaps)
- Actions (Meet-Up post coming soon)
- Publications (Link to Mymaps)
- Best Practices and Related Media News
- Educational tool: How to - Education for teenagers
- Reporting Tool: The reporting spreadsheet by @DavidTito
- LocalGuidesCleanTheWorld - In your Language
Share this post in all social, Using the Hashtags #LocalGuidesCleanTheWorld and #LocalGuides
Thanks for reading - Have a Fun with Local Guides
Ermes
