{"id":15958,"date":"2018-04-18T01:00:06","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T01:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/?p=15958"},"modified":"2019-11-06T09:48:24","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T08:48:24","slug":"over-1-million-people-demand-corporations-reduce-single-use-plastics-ahead-of-earth-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/press-release\/15958\/over-1-million-people-demand-corporations-reduce-single-use-plastics-ahead-of-earth-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Over 1 million people demand corporations reduce single-use plastics ahead of Earth Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Washington, DC, 18 April 2018 &#8211; More than one million people ahead of this year\u2019s Earth Day (April 22) <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/media.greenpeace.org\/collection\/27MZIFJXOGWVP\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">are demanding that the world\u2019s largest corporations reduce their production of single-use plastic<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Around the globe, over one million individuals have signed petitions, taken to stores and restaurants, and posted photos of ridiculous packaging on social media to call out corporations like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nestl\u00e9, Unilever, Procter &amp; Gamble, McDonald\u2019s, and Starbucks for their massive single-use plastic footprints. Greenpeace, as part of the #BreakFreeFromPlastic movement, is <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/media.greenpeace.org\/shoot\/27MZIFJXTSJ_S\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">urging individuals worldwide<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to contribute to an additional \u201c<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/MillionActsOfBlue\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Million Acts of Blue<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201d: escalating actions that push local businesses, corporations, restaurants, and retailers to reduce their reliance on single-use plastics. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ahead of Earth Day, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/metamag.org\/2018\/04\/10\/arty-plastic-protests-set-to-spread-across-europe\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">artists have also created massive works of beach art throughout Europe calling attention to the issue of ocean plastic pollution<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWe are reaching a tipping point on single-use plastics, and it is time for any corporation that cares about a healthy planet to go beyond recycling alone. Throwaway plastics continue to pour into our oceans, our waterways, and our communities at an alarming rate,\u201d said Graham Forbes, a Plastics Campaigner at Greenpeace USA.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThis Earth Day, it is time to confront the reality that we cannot simply recycle our way out of this mess. We must address the corporate addiction to single-use plastics and move in a better direction.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Greenpeace and activists around the world have taken action throughout the month of April to reject the single-use plastics that corporations sell consumers. Activities included: <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the U.S., Greenpeace activists deployed two signs near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco that read \u201cBreak Free From Plastic\u201d and \u201cStop Corporate Plastic Pollution,\u201d featuring logos of seven companies with massive plastic footprints. Greenpeace USA is also bringing its hot air balloon with a Break Free From Plastic message to world\u2019s largest environmental festival in Texas.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Russia, activists installed three billboards outside of a supermarket location for the country\u2019s largest retailer, X5 Retail Group, calling on the company to act on single-use plastic bags.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the Philippines, Greenpeace partnered with a local artist collective to stage the ECOlta Fair and Plastic-Free party, which engaged individuals who aim to live free from plastic or reduce their waste. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In South Africa, Senegal, Cameroon, and Kenya, Greenpeace Africa is working with volunteers to conduct beach and town cleanups and brand audits to identify the companies responsible for plastic pollution.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Spain, as part of a movement called #DesnudalaFruta, local groups are visiting retailers to demand solutions and educate consumers on the amount of plastic packaging with their products. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Mexico, a group of activists collected and photographed packaging from seven of the world\u2019s largest companies. In Veracruz, plastic artist Francisco Javier Calvillo made a sand sculpture of a giant turtle with a message for corporations. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&#8220;The solution is to turn off the plastics tap and decisively end the non-essential, single-use applications of the material. Increasing public revulsion over single-use plastics should be seen by policy makers and regulators as a sign that citizens want better protection from their leaders against the continuing onslaughts of an industry committed to pursuing bigger profit margins at the expense of a planet already drowning in plastic,\u201d said Von Hernandez, the Global Coordinator for Break Free From Plastic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Earth Day has become an opportunity for many corporations to greenwash around recycling efforts and continue churning out throwaway plastic. This Earth Day, Greenpeace is looking to shift the narrative around single-use plastics from one of individual responsibility toward corporations reducing their production of throwaway plastic packaging. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">ENDS<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Notes:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/advances.sciencemag.org\/content\/3\/7\/e1700782\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">study<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> revealed that 91 percent of the world\u2019s plastics have not been recycled. The equivalent of <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www3.weforum.org\/docs\/WEF_The_New_Plastics_Economy.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">one truckload of plastic<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> enters our oceans every minute. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Plastic pollution can choke or entangle marine life, including seabirds, turtles, and whales. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.unesco.org\/new\/en\/natural-sciences\/ioc-oceans\/focus-areas\/rio-20-ocean\/blueprint-for-the-future-we-want\/marine-pollution\/facts-and-figures-on-marine-pollution\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">estimates<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that ocean plastics are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of sea creatures each year. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The international <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.breakfreefromplastic.org\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">#BreakFreeFromPlastic movement<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is comprised of more than 1,100 groups, including Greenpeace, pushing for corporations to reduce and eventually phase out single-use plastic production. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Greenpeace released a toolkit today to help individuals demand action on plastic pollution, available here: <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/MillionActsOfBlue\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">www.greenpeace.org\/MillionActsOfBlue<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Photo and video:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For photos of actions against single-use plastics around the globe, <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/media.greenpeace.org\/collection\/27MZIFJXOGWVP\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">click here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For photos of EEB\u2019s beach art throughout Europe, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/metamag.org\/2018\/04\/10\/arty-plastic-protests-set-to-spread-across-europe\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">click here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For a wide photo and video collection of ocean plastic pollution, <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/media.greenpeace.org\/collection\/27MZIFJXOQE3R\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">click here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the Million Acts of Blue video Greenpeace released today, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/media.greenpeace.org\/shoot\/27MZIFJXTSJ_S\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">click here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Contacts: <\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perry Wheeler, Greenpeace USA Senior Communications Specialist, +1 301 675 8766, <\/span><a href=\"mailto:perry.wheeler@greenpeace.org\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">perry.wheeler@greenpeace.org<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 20 718 2470, <\/span><a href=\"mailto:pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> (available 24 hours)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWe are reaching a tipping point on single-use plastics, and it is time for any corporation that cares about a healthy planet to go beyond recycling alone.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":15959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70,73],"tags":[67,85],"p4-page-type":[98],"class_list":["post-15958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nature","category-social-and-economic-systems","tag-consumption","tag-oceans","p4-page-type-press-release"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15958"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16145,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15958\/revisions\/16145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15958"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=15958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}