We would love for you to join us by taking part in our annual plastic-free day on Wednesday, the 8th of May – just before the 98th birthday of the legend Sir David Attenborough! It’s easy to sign up for FREE, just fill out this form.

Each year, we encourage schools, businesses, and individuals to take part in a day that will hopefully kick-start some brilliant initiatives and behaviours to reduce our use of unnecessary plastic.

The Big Plastic Count revealed that in the UK, it is estimated that we throw away 1.7 billion pieces of plastic a week, which equates to a staggering 90 billion pieces a year. Many of these items are single-use food packaging, like crisp and snack bags, as well as trays that contain fruits and vegetables. This means that the UK tops the global charts for plastic waste per person, second only to the USA.

Unfortunately, recycling rates in the UK are still not fantastic, with only 17% of plastic waste is recycled, which unbelievably doesn’t include the 14% of the plastic we ‘recycle’ by sending it abroad – the main country we export our recycling to is now Turkey. We believe this is a shameful practice, and a recent investigation by Greenpeace found plastic waste identified as packaging from some of the UK’s leading supermarket brands dumped, burned, piled into mountains and left to spill into rivers and the sea. And unbelievably, the UK sent 11% of plastic waste produced to landfill and incinerated a whopping 58%, an increase of 12% since last year!

Global annual virgin plastic production (not recycled) is set to double by 2040 and increase to 1.1 billion tonnes in 2050. When more single-use plastics are produced, more end up in our ocean, choking and entangling marine life and leaching toxic chemicals.

We want to encourage positive change in our attitudes to look for alternatives to single-use plastic packaging, and one way to get started is by encouraging everyone to take part in our plastic-free day. For schools, we have a suite of useful downloadable resources that can be used for lesson plans and activities. We also have lots of suggestions for how businesses can take part in the day. 

To sign up for Plastic-Free Day 2024, follow this link – Here

If you would like a FREE resources pack to help make your event a huge success, please feel free to download the Plastic-Free Day Resource Pack below.

One day to change perceptions and potential future behaviours – we think it’s worth a go and would love you to take part, spread the word and help to make a difference!