Plastic pirates

Topics: Climate Change, Children’s Rights

Age: all ages Group size: any group size Duration: 1-3 hours

Materials needed:

Gloves, plastic bags, trash pickers Materials for drawing

Introduction

The world produces more than 400 million tons of plastic every year and the vast majority of plastic products are not recyclable. The United Nations published a report estimating that 79% of plastic waste is thrown in landfills, dumps or the environment, while about 12% is incinerated and only 9% recycled. Plastic damages our environment and planet, so the world needs saviours! This is a great activity to engage smaller kids in climate action and to introduce topics such as climate change and pollution. This workshop idea is a combination of two projects from Saaed Altahami (Fram Fylkingen) in Norway and Loukmanou Toure (Pionniers du Mali) in Mali. Both were part of Resist! The Global Climate Divide, a project supported by the European Youth Foundation and the Council of Europe.

Step by step instructions:

1. Energizer and/or getting to know each other. (10 mins)

2. Introduction. Explain what the purpose of the workshop is: clean up the local area and collect the waste. Depending on the group, you can also include an introductory activity to present the effects of plastic on climate.

3. Introduction. Explain what the purpose of the workshop is: clean up the local area and collect the waste. Depending on the group, you can also include an introductory activity to present the effects of plastic on climate.

4. Debriefing. Come back to the group and reflect with the participants. You can use leading questions such as: - How was it? Was it fun? - Was there a lot of waste? Why do you think there was so much waste? - What can we do to improve the situation?

5. Drawing. As a conclusion, children can draw something related to the activity they experienced. Some fun ideas may be plastic monster vs pirate, effects of pollution, picking up the trash...

Online adaptation:

Collecting trash in your area can hardly be done online, but you can organise an online meeting to present the project and coordinate different pirate plastic collectors that will then go to their communities and clean them up. A second session can be organised to evaluate the activity, share some pictures and brainstorm about other possible actions.

Tips and variations

Add a discussion of where and how the various things you have collected are manufactured to go into more depth.