Planet v Plastics: Earth Day 2024

Dear all,

Monday 22nd April was Earth Day. First celebrated 54 years ago (on 22nd April 1970), Earth Day aimed to raise awareness of environmental conservation. It was attended by 20 million people across the United States of America, and credited with building support for new laws such as the Clean Air and the Endangered Species Acts in the early 1970s. Twenty years later, one of the original organisers organised a global Earth Day, in which over 200 million people participated in around 140 countries, and since then it has grown into the Earth Day Network, which works all year round to promote a healthy, sustainable environment for everyone. Earth Day is now one of the largest public, secular events in the world, with around 1 billion participants each year.

The theme of Earth Day 2024 is Planet v Plastics, intending to highlight the damage done by plastics to our environment. The official Earth Day website mentions the following statistics:

• Plastic production now has grown to more than 380 million tons per year
• More plastic has been produced in the last ten years than in the entire 20th century
• More than 500 billion plastic bags—one million bags per minute—were produced worldwide last year
• 100 billion plastic drink containers were sold last year in the US – that’s more than 300 bottles per inhabitant
• 95% of all plastics in the US won’t be recycled at all
• Making a plastic water bottle takes 6 times as much water as the bottle actually contains
• The ‘fast fashion’ industry produces over 100 billion garments each year – people now buy 60% more clothing than 15 years ago, but each item is kept for only half as long
• Around 85% of garments end up in landfills or incinerators, with only 1% being recycled
• Nearly 70% of clothing is made from crude oil, resulting in the release of dangerous microfibers when washed and continued contribution to long-term pollution in landfills

The Earth Day website continues:

The word environment means what surrounds you. In the case of plastics we have become the product itself – it flows through our bloodstream, adheres to our internal organs, and carries with it heavy metals known to cause cancer and disease. Now this once-thought amazing and useful product has become something else, and our health and that of all other living creatures hangs in the balance. The Planet vs. Plastics campaign is a call to arms, a demand that we act now to end the scourge of plastics and safeguard the health of every living being upon our planet.

Kathleen Rogers, President of EarthDay.org

Despite the focus on reducing the use of plastics over the past decade or so, the problem of plastic pollution and its impact on our health seems to have got worse, not better. Earth Day 2024 will see the launch of their ‘60×40’ campaign to reduce plastic use by at least 60% by the year 2040. Those of you in the Upper Sixth will be around 34 years old by 2040, whilst those in Year 7 will be in your mid-late 20s. Some of you will have your own children by then, and will no doubt be thinking about the kind of world they will grow up in.

At Brentwood we are playing our part.

At Holroyd Howe, we are committed to reducing the use of plastic by changing our approach to disposable and finding other ways to work. Examples include:

• Plastic bottles of water removed from sports packed lunches (a reduction of some 10,000 bottles)
• All plastic cutlery replaced with wooden (100% recyclable)
• All reusable plastic dessert pots replaced with alternatives made with corn starch (100% recyclable)
• Use of cling film reduced by 50% (by using reusable containers and lids whenever possible) reduced the length of cling film used by 16.7km last year

We are conscious that there is more work to do to reduce our plastic use, and we will continue to find ways to do so.

Have a great weekend

Best wishes

Michael Bond