On the 5th June World Environment Day focused on bringing your people together to beat plastic pollution.
Being so cheap and easy to produce plastic is found everywhere in our day to day lives, from the packaging around our food to the tiny microbeads that are found in our clothes and released every time we put on a wash. 51 trillion pieces of plastic are currently polluting our sea and although it is hard to visualise such an immense quantity the impact this is having on our marine wildlife is clear.
Millions of sea creatures are harmed every year when they mistakenly consume our plastic waste and we can thank the BBC’s Blue Planet for bringing this fact to our attention. It is easy to feel helpless staring at our TV screens begging animals to stop eating plastic, so instead why don’t we take action?
Exciting steps have already been taken at a global level. India has set their goal of eliminating all single-use plastics by 2022, with many other countries following their lead, including the 50 which have committed to the UN’S Clean Seas campaign. However, our own daily choices are also important in creating the change.
As part of our Jump Engagement Programmes we are asking employees to make pledges to reduce their plastic use. For example, pledging to only use their reusable coffee cups when buying their morning coffee fix, or using reusable water bottles instead of buying disposable plastic ones.
Following a successful pilot at RBS in 2016, we saved 500,000 disposable coffee cups by encouraging reusable alternatives, and this continues to increase. We are also inviting our members to get creative by upcycling old plastic products to make something new. How about converting your old yoghurt pots into new seedling trays?
By encouraging your people to make responsible choices when it comes to every day plastic use, we can generate big savings that help you towards your environmental targets. If you’d like to hear more about our Jump programmes, please get in touch at [email protected].
Bit by bit we aim to leave our throw-away culture behind us and clean up our oceans. As World Environment day taught us, if you can’t reuse it, refuse it!
