HAZla Por tu Playa: Mobilizing Citizens to Shape Policies
We were idealist. Twenty something year olds, inspired by academic theories of change, and, most of all, in love with the natural bounties of our country: Peru. We came from different backgrounds: a lawyer, a biologist, a journalist, and an environmental health scientist. We had chosen not to follow a traditional career path and started our own organizations (Conservamos por Naturaleza and L.O.O.P.).
Frustrated by the lack of national citizen action to protect Peru’s natural resources, we began ideating a project our two organizations could lead. One thing was clear: it would be a citizen-led campaign. Social media would serve as a tool but a real off-line action had to happen. HAZla Por tu Playa was born.
Simply, HAZla por tu Playa is a beach clean-up campaign. Today beach cleanups are widespread. In 2012 this wasn’t the case, especially not in Latin America. To the best of our knowledge, HAZla was the first nation-wide campaign to mobilize citizens in Peru for a collective environmental action. While important, the collection of debris in itself was not the end goal. Our goal was to inspire behavior change through a lived experience: visualizing first hand where mismanaged waste ends up.
The campaign aimed to empower others: our organizations would support a volunteer coordinator who would use social media to reach out to youth groups nation-wide, and leaders in turn would reach out to their communities. The objective was to mobilize as many volunteers as possible on a single date around the same action. Most of all, the leaders were trained on the impacts of plastic pollution and were expected to hold workshops with their volunteer groups — knowledge is the first step towards behavior change.
Our expectations for the first edition were low. We thought a handful of people in our direct circle of friends would partake and that we wouldn’t exceed a couple hundred volunteers. We were wrong: over 1,000 volunteers were part of the first edition. Moreover, we had not foreseen that the movement would shape itself without our lead, last the test of time, and influence national policy.
Today HAZla por tu Playa remains a citizen-led campaign. Conservamos por Naturaleza and L.O.O.P. serve as institutional, and moral, support. Every year a volunteer team of coordinators is responsible for fundraising, campaign logistics, and outreach.
Four years ago scientific data began to be collected. In 2018, the data was used as evidence of the impacts of plastic pollution on the Peruvian coastline during the congressional debate that led to the adoption of the single-use plastics ban law. The law was approved by the Peruvian congress in December 2018.
The seventh edition of of HAZla por tu Playa will take place this weekend March 2nd and 3rd. Results analysis this year will use 2018 and 2019 cleanup data to rank items by brand name. The aim is to highlight which companies are responsible for the pollution on the Peruvian coastline and work on extended producer responsibility policies.
At a time when the future of our planet is uncertain and global forecasts project doomsday scenarios, grassroots citizen-led campaigns instill hope for catalyzing change.
If you would like to learn more about HAZla Por Tu Playa or support future editions, please contact hazlaportuplaya@gmail.com
