Our 2019 Changemaker team really understood the objective of the project: reducing plastic pollution!
They started a student club named Bio-Bellver, that meets once per week after school hours and discusses environmental issues and how they can change them. Through the club, the members managed to involve their whole school in plastic reduction projects and replace single use plastic cups with reusable cups in their school cantina, reducing the use of 11,500 small plastic bottles in their school lunch hall per year!
To top things off the team invited students of all ages to join the club and together they have participated in school fairs and sold small cactus plants (plastic-free!) to fundraise for Save the Med. This team joined us on-board the Toftevaag and helped us study microplastic pollution in the Mediterranean. When on-board, they had to brave a challenging week at sea, with high winds and rough weather! They came out of it amazingly and after only a few days, they were jumping in the ocean with us, swimming expertly to salvage pieces of floating plastic and bring it safely on-board.
Since their participation in the Changemakers project, the Club has continued to take action, including organizing zero-waste workshops, holding presentations at community events and in companies. The catering firm was so impressed by their efforts to reduce plastic bottles that the have expressed a wish to present the same idea to the other 12 schools that they work with.