The National Geographic’s Plastic Plan and Waste2Wear

News 14.06.2019

National Geographic’s month of June is dominated by the fight against disposable plastic.

With City Clean-Ups spread throughout the Netherlands, an online Plastic Plan and a lot of attention in the media, National Geographic is focusing on their annual campaign “Stop with Plastic”. The month of June is dominated by the fight against disposable plastic.

National Geographic is organizing City Clean-Ups to remove disposable plastic out of our environment

While the Plastic Plan helps reduce disposable plastic, organised Clean-Ups are removing it. After the success of the Beach Clean-Ups in Zandvoort and Scheveningen last year, National Geographic is organizing City Clean-Ups in The Hague, Nijmegen and Zwolle in June. Anyone who wants to participate can register free of charge via natgeo.nl/stopmetplastic.
 

9 billion kilos of plastic

A dead whale with 80 plastic bags in its stomach, containers full of plastic in the Wadden Sea … Time and again we are confronted with the harmful effects of plastic pollution. Every year, 9 billion kilos of plastic end up in the ocean as many products, such as straws and plastic bags, are easy to replace and disposed after each use. National Geographic therefore encourages people worldwide to make their own Plastic Plan on stopmetplastic.nl, which states the disposable products you really won’t want to use anymore. 
 

Stop disposable plastic

The campaign has many perspectives. Presenter/Copywriter Harm Edens is this year’s ambassador for “Stop with Plastic. Edens is clear about his motivation:

“The awareness about disposable plastic has increased considerably lately. Yet you often hear “let them start in China or Indonesia” while here too we are surrounded by disposable plastic. As an ambassador, I like to express what we can do in our own lives to stop plastic.”

The campaign is also supported by, among others, EU Vice President Frans Timmermans, Olympic surfing champion Dorian van Rijsselberghe, FOX Sports presenter Jan Joost van Gangelen and Sacha de Boer.

The Kick-off

The kick-off took place in The Hague at the Museon, near the dolphin by artist Peter Smith, made from recycled plastic. In the Museon the central exhibition, “One Planet”, is based on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. Examples of themes that are addressed in the exhibition are overfishing, energy, refugees, climate change, discrimination and water pollution.

Monique Maissan, CEO of Waste2Wear

reveals her Plastic Plan and how to collaborate to create change in an interview on The National Geographic:

“The plastic problem is so big: it cannot be solved by just a government, or a business, or NGOs, or universities. We have to do that together. We fight plastic with our Waste2Wear® Ocean Plastic Project, in which we collaborate with Chinese universities, TU Delft, a number of government agencies and various companies, to clean coastal areas in China, and develop environmentally friendly textiles out of it.”

Read the interview

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