A 9-year-old girl from the United Kingdom started a petition at change.org to call out British PM (Prime Minister) Boris Johnson about the country's unethical plastic waste management regulation. In less than a week since her petition started, it already garnered more than 70,000 signatures.
Plastic by the shore
Lizzie A, a young girl from the UK, started this petition. She has been studying plastic pollution since she was five years old.
The UK ships its plastic wastes to relatively poorer developing countries. Many are against this policy, labeling it as improper and unethical. Lizzie's petition aims to call on the proper authority and address the problem.
She believes that sending Britain's unsorted plastic waste to other countries is wrong and unfair.
She decided to write the petition after reading a piece from the Guardian's Seascape series.
There she found out that the UK will continue shipping plastic waste to other countries despite the EU (European Union) banning this waste management practice.
Lizzie has a knack for learning about everything that concerns the oceans. She claimed that she wants to be a marine biologist or ecologist in the near future.
She said, "At school, we've learned about how plastic damages the environment and what happens to it over many years. It breaks down into microplastics, and they harm marine life. I'm passionate about the ocean, and I was upset at how plastic ends up in the ocean because of the exports."
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UNETHICAL PRACTICE
The practice does not ensure proper waste disposal, and when plastics are not appropriately taken care of, they usually end up being burned or dumped.
Those methods just make it harder for the environment as burning plastics create harmful gases while leaving them around will only inevitably lead them back to the oceans.
What made Lizzie particularly upset was that she learned that the reason why the practice will still continue is that it found a way to carry on legally under "new regulations."
"I was stunned about how Boris Johnson made a promise, and he hasn't done what he said," she said.
"We're really lazy in not dealing with our own plastic ourselves. It's a large amount of plastic. It's 300 tonnes of plastic every day. When we send it to communities that can't deal with it, they burn it, and a lot of the smoke gets in the air, and that can harm people."
Lizzie and her mother, Esther, have been continuously monitoring the progress of her petition. They were glad to know that many people were willing to support their cause.
She initially tried to register the petition on the UK parliament website, where petitions that reached 100,000 signatures calls for an immediate response from the government. But, it was rejected due to the existing petition resembling hers.
Government action
She is currently writing a letter to her MP (Member of Parliament), Simon Jupp, to ask his aid in persuading the government to take immediate action. She wants her to honor his promises during the election.
"If parliament realizes people are thinking passionately about plastic not being exported, then Boris Johnson might ban it quicker," Lizzie said.
Lizzie's action is proof of the future generation's concern for the environment.
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