Meet the Siblings Fighting Plastic Pollution

Good News Notes:

Can you both tell us about your organization, Hidden Plastic, and what inspired you to start an environmental initiative?

Zara: Hidden Plastic educates people through a series of dark comedy videos on some of the problems, but also solutions, to the global micro-plastics issue. We started our journey in the summer of 2020 when we first joined Ocean Heroes Virtual Bootcamp (OHvBC). Part of the challenge for OHvBC was to start your own campaign, so we thought about what problems we should focus on. We realised that micro-plastics are very important but not as well addressed. We also thought we could focus on plastic that is ‘hidden’ from view, such as ‘recycling’ that is actually just sent overseas to countries that then can’t handle the waste, or microscopic plastics seeping into Nature and our food supply. 

Ashton: Microplastics are a big problem. They are everywhere: we inhale them, they’re in our food, and they’re in our water supplies. But small amounts add up, which means in one week, we ingest approximately one credit card worth of plastic. We started Hidden Plastic to raise more awareness about this problem by spreading information through our videos, which are funny & slightly surreal so people watch them again & again. 

Zara: Quite a bit of my inspiration came from travel when we were fortunate enough to see marine life in the wild like snorkeling with a manta ray, which I feature in my art. I have always wanted to become a marine biologist, and at school, when I was 7 years old, I wrote a fact file about algae instead of fish like everyone else. The research about algae led to my concern about the symbiotic relationship between algae and the coral reefs.

Ashton: We’ve always been passionate as a family about the ocean and wanted to help it. When I was 8 years old, Zara and I got involved with the local Strike for Climate march. If we hadn’t taken part in that, we might have just worried about the world’s problems and felt like we could do nothing. But the climate strikes turned us from being people just worrying about the problems in the world into climate activists. Then we came across the Ocean Heroes Network in 2020. We thought it would be amazing to join other young ocean heroes around the world. 

You create such a fun variety of educational videos on your YouTube channel! How do you come up with the different ideas for these?

Zara: I think what we do is to first think of a problem that we would like to address and research it. Then (with some help from our mum) we sit down and write the ideas and a script to make it entertaining and educational. For example, our unofficial mascot the ‘sea chicken’ came about from our first video where I had to dress up as a seabird. All we had at home was a chicken hat and hoped no one would notice (they did!). Sea chicken was born… and he/she returns regularly in our videos.

Ashton: First, we start off with a problem like micro-plastics everywhere, and then we get facts about it. Instead of making a distressing video, we try to make it funny. People remember things better when they are funny, so it seems to work for us. If they weren’t funny, it would just be a dry, educational site. If adults dress up in sea chicken costumes, then people just think they’re weird. But, when kids do it, that’s OK! ….”

View the whole story here: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/conservation-commons/2021/11/04/meet-the-siblings-fighting-plastic-pollution/

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