On 31 July 2018, the Two Oceans Aquarium hosted a night of inspiration and motivation about single-use plastic and the people who are doing something about it! After a full month of awareness-raising for Plastic Free July, this was the ideal time for everyone to come together and engage with the issue of and solutions to plastic pollution in the ocean.
The “Home to Ocean” event was made up of individual presentations followed by a panel discussion facilitated by our very own SASSI Manager, Pavs Pillay. The speakers included Beach Co-op, POLYCO, Faithful to Nature, Love our Trails, #ICarryMyOwn, Plantastic and Rethink the Bag, who all provided different insights to plastics, based on their initiatives. The engagement included, how what we do in our homes affects the health of the ocean, and that of the planet, how beach clean-ups can move communities to take care of their environment, how economic incentives can jumpstart better-engaged informal recycling efforts, how we can drive change amongst consumers, how the corporate world is responding to the crisis of plastic pollution, how we can green our footprint when it comes to large sporting events and what moves ordinary citizens to start up their own campaigns.
It was an engaging evening which concluded with a thought provoking quote by Pavs Pillay, “We need to remember when we make positive lifestyle changes by refusing and reducing single use plastics, we are also actively changing the legacy we leave for future generations”.
Kirtanya, WWF-SASSI Project Officer