Fighting Plastic Pollution

What's Our Mission

Our mission is to connect broken people to a community of support by providing free resources and services that address immediate and long-term needs in the areas of homelessness, hunger, poverty, addiction, abuse, education and human trafficking.

Our History

A group of thoughtful, committed citizens came together in 1971 to create Greenpeace. A handful of determined activists leased a small fishing vessel, called the Phyllis Cormack, and set sail from Vancouver for Amchitka Island in Alaska. Their mission was to protest U.S. nuclear testing off the coast of Alaska with a brave act of defiance: to place themselves in harm’s way. Despite being intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard, these daring activists sailed into history by bringing worldwide attention to the dangers of nuclear testing.

Our Work

That was more than 40 years ago, and in that time, Greenpeace has indeed changed the world. And we continue to make the world a better place. Our committed activists and supporters have come together to ban commercial whaling, convince the world’s leaders to stop nuclear testing, protect Antarctica, and so much more.Today, we have grown from a small group of dedicated activists to an international organization with offices in more than 50 countries. But our spirit and our mission remain the same. Our fight to save the planet has grown more serious—the climate change impacts, destruction of ancient forests, deterioration of our oceans, and the threat of a nuclear disaster loom large. Greenpeace is actively working to address these and other threats.

Why This Campaign Started

The flow of plastics into our environment has reached crisis proportions, and the evidence is most clearly on display in our oceans. It is estimated that up to 12 million metric tons of plastic enter our ocean each year. Our oceans are slowly turning into a plastic soup, and the effects on ocean life are chilling. Discarded plastic fishing lines entangle turtles and seabirds, and plastic pieces of all sizes choke and clog the stomachs of creatures who mistake it for food, from tiny zooplankton to whales. Plastic is now entering every level of the ocean food chain and is even ending up in the seafood on our plates. Our planet can no longer tolerate a culture of throw-away plastics. Single-use plastics are filling up our landfills, choking our rivers, and contaminating our oceans. For far too long, corporations have put the onus on all of us to deal with their own failed design problem. We have been told that the individual should simply recycle away the billions of tons of plastics corporations produce and that it will make the difference needed to sustain our planet.

Take Action!

Our world is choking on plastic. The equivalent of one garbage truck of plastic enters into our seas every minute, every day, all year long. Without significant intervention, this amount is expected to increase to the equivalent of four truckloads by 2050. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch — a soupy area in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where plastic fragments accumulate — currently spans an area two times the size of Texas. The plastic pollution crisis is massive, and beach cleanups and recycling are simply not enough. We need real solutions now! Corporations like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Unilever, Starbucks, Procter & Gamble, and McDonald’s all have a huge role to play when it comes to plastic pollution. We are sold coffee, soda, chips, candy, sandwiches, shampoo, face wash, and soap contained in plastic that we have no choice but to throw away. It is time for these corporations to invest in alternatives and phase out single-use plastic! Add your name to ask the CEOs of these companies to do their part to end the crisis by ensuring their companies’ packaging is never found in our oceans, waterways, or coasts again!

Campaign Ads

We encourage you to download, printout, and help bring awareness to your local community. Feel free to print these out and hang them around! The more people see these the more they will want to change how we treat our planet.

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