Don’t suck: Help save the world!

Primary pupils use their English lessons take on the UK Government in a bid to ban plastic straws in the UK. Sign their petition on Change.org

This article was originally published by Innovate My School

Of all the stories in the news at the moment, plastic pollution is one of the most shocking. However, the most shocking thing about it has nothing to do with the visuals that we are bombarded with daily via the media. The most shocking thing about plastic pollution is that it is a problem, created by adults, that will affect our children so much more than it affects us.

With the issue weighing heavily on their minds, a class of 9 - 10 year olds decided to do something about it. In their English lessons, they studied persuasive writing and started writing to and conducting interviews with their local pub owners to ban plastic straws. Plastic straws in particular are a needless, single-use waste of plastic which ends up being thrown away after an average of about 20 minutes which is an incredibly short lifecycle given that every plastic straw ever made still exists in some form to this today.

To their amazement, it worked and their local McMullen’s brewery willingly agreed with their campaign. Spurred on by success, they used this momentum to start a petition on Change.org to ask the UK Government for a ban on plastic straws using the hashtag #strawssuck.

The petition is currently about to pass 6,000 signatures but this group of young changemakers is focused on getting the petition debated in Parliament. For this, we need 10,000 signatures and so we are asking for your help to sign and share their petition.

We believe that this petition is a small but important step in letting our young people know that they have the right to demand changes which will improve their environment. As adults, we have turned a blind eye to plastic pollution and now the burden is firmly with the younger generation who will have to lead the clean up of our world from plastic. This petition will be handed to Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in June 2017.

To support the petition, sign and share it here