Collaboration | Trash Hero World

Trash Hero submits proposal for the Global Plastics Treaty to UN Environmental Programme

by Lydia on 15/01/2023 No comments

Trash Hero World has submitted a proposal to the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) ahead of the second session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-2) to develop a Global Plastics Treaty.

We worked together with Break Free from Plastic to submit the statement, which addresses the potential elements for the treaty and outlines a plan for dealing with plastic pollution in all environments. Drafted by their policy experts, its key objectives focus on the removal of unnecessary plastics that jeopardise the environment, while ensuring that the planet and its inhabitants are protected. Control measures should cover each stage of the plastic lifecycle – from raw material extraction to product production, waste management, and leakage into the environment. Some of the recommendations include stopping harmful chemicals and plastics, reducing the use of virgin materials and transitioning to a circular economy.

As stated by the UN Special Rapporteur, a human-rights-based approach must be adopted in the management of reducing global plastics. This means ensuring social justice for waste pickers and other workers in the global plastics value chain and environmental justice for communities that have been unfairly impacted by plastic pollution.

Trash Hero World was granted formal consultative status at the United Nations Environmental Assembly in March 2022. As an official observer, we are now among 500+ NGOs globally that can give input to policy discussions and participate in the UNEA sessions and those of its subsidiary bodies. Our proposal is one among around 200 that are publicly available on the UNEP website (under the “Pre-Session Submissions” tab). These proposals will be reviewed for inclusion in the official documentation provided to the negotiating committee at the INC-2 summit in Paris in May this year.

In November 2022, the five-year Brand Audit Report was submitted to the INC-1. Trash Hero was a major contributor of data to the study.

Using our platform to advocate for the reduction of plastic production and the adoption of zero waste systems is an important part of our ongoing commitment to “act local but think global”. By engaging with UNEP, and other key stakeholders, we hope to drive change and create a cleaner and more equitable world for future generations. We are proud to work alongside Break Free From Plastic in this goal.

Trash Hero World joined the Break Free From Plastic movement in 2018. Since then, we have collaborated on several important projects that aim to reduce plastic pollution worldwide, including being a top contributor to data in their annual Brand Audit reports.

Trash Hero World receives UN Environment accreditation

by Seema on 24/03/2022 No comments

Trash Hero World is honoured to have been granted formal consultative status at the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA). This “observer status” is awarded through an accreditation from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which we received on 16 March 2022.

UNEP has been working for 50 years to protect the environment, fight climate change and support sustainable development. It sets the environmental agenda, promotes the coherent implementation of the environmental dimension of sustainable development within the United Nations system and serves as an authoritative advocate for the global environment. UNEA is its governing body, comprising of 193 member states, representatives from civil society, businesses, and other major groups and stakeholders. It is the world’s highest-level decision-making body on the environment.

The full list of UNEP-accredited organisations, including Trash Hero World, can be found on the UNEP website.

As an official observer, we are now among 500+ NGOs globally who can give input to policy discussions and participate in the UNEA sessions and those of its subsidiary bodies. With the announcement of a legally binding global plastics treaty at the recent UNEA-5.2 in Nairobi, it is a very exciting time to join and to be able to give voice to the needs and views of our grassroots volunteer network, many of whom are working on the frontline of the plastics crisis in Southeast Asia.

Trash Hero joins the Plastic Health Coalition

by Martyna Morawska on 19/01/2022 No comments

Trash Hero World is proud to have been invited to become a new member of the Plastic Health Coalition. Together, we will work on preventing and resolving the harmful impacts of plastic pollution on the environment, as well as filling the knowledge gaps regarding the relationship between plastics and human health.

The Plastic Health Coalition was launched by the Plastic Soup Foundation, a non-profit organisation aiming to educate the public about “plastic soup” – the litter floating in the oceans and affecting marine life, the environment and our health. The coalition involves various national and international environmental and research organisations, whose scope of work focuses on the negative effects of plastics and microplastics on our health. As part of the initiative, a yearly Plastic Health Summit is organised with the focus being on exposing the devastating health impacts of plastics, and highlighting the benefits of a healthy environment.

By joining the Plastic Health Coalition, Trash Hero hopes to facilitate and support the process of spreading essential knowledge regarding plastic pollution and human health. Our expertise, experience and resources will enable us to bring this knowledge to international audiences in multiple languages. We are committed to supporting the Plastic Health Coalition in the fight for a healthier planet and, by extension, healthier people.

Trash Hero brings The Story of Plastic to new audiences

by Martyna Morawska on 13/12/2021 2 comments

Billed as the film “Big Oil doesn’t want you to see”, the Emmy-Award winning documentary The Story of Plastic presents a cohesive timeline of how we got to the current stage in the global plastic crisis, showing how the petrochemical and FMCG industries manipulated the narrative around the pollution they were creating, successfully pinning the blame on the consumer and public infrastructure.

After its success, its producers, The Story of Stuff Project, released a short animated version of the documentary that summarises its main arguments and the need for systemic change in under five minutes.

Seeing the potential of this short to address misconceptions about the solutions to the plastic crisis, Trash Hero collaborated with The Story of Stuff Project to produce local language versions, with dubbed narration.

We have already released versions in Thai, Indonesian and Malaysian; several other languages will follow in 2022. This will allow the important messages of the film to be seen by new audiences in Southeast Asia and beyond. To date, the videos have reached more than 1 million people on social media! If you are connected to any of these language speakers, please do share the clip with them.

The original video files are also freely available to use offline for NGOS, schools and organisations; please contact us to get a download link.

We would like to thank the global Trash Hero Family and everyone who has been involved in the translation project. Special thanks to the volunteers and studio facilities who provided their time for free:

Malaysia: Muhammad Asyraf bin Rosmidi and Anne Vendargon (translation), Rosnani Nazri (narration)

Thailand: 130TUN (video editing)

Arabic: (clip coming soon) Arts Group Studio, Laila Al-Najjar (narration), Yousef Al-Shatti and Bader Al-Shatti (translation)

Vietnam: (clip coming soon) Hiệp Nguyễn (translation and narration), 130TUN (video editing)

To view the original English version of “The Story of Plastic animated short” with subtitles in many languages, please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO3SA4YyEYU

Gala concert held for Trash Hero World

by Martyna Morawska on 22/11/2021 No comments

In the evening of November 12th, Trash Hero took part in a very special event – a gala with an acoustic concert organised in Hotel Alexander (Weggis, Switzerland).

A piano and guitar set was performed by a Swiss singer and song-writer Eliane, winner of the second season of Switzerland’s Got Talent. Eliane is an ambassador for Schnarwiler’s cosmetics lines “Trash Hero Love” and “Re-use-me” and is an avid supporter of Trash Hero’s activities.

Throughout the evening, we received over $3500 in donations, including the entire amount earned by the guitarist for the night who kindly donated his salary, which we are extremely grateful for!

The gala was organised by Schnarwiler, a Swiss based manufacturer and distributor of beauty and health products, who have launched a zero-waste line of toiletry products in collaboration with Trash Hero. During the event, Roman Peter had the opportunity to deliver a presentation to an audience of around 100 people, explaining the mission and vision of Trash Hero, as well as inviting attendees to join the movement.

We would like to especially thank Eliane for her role in this fundraising event, and for her continued commitment to raising awareness about our mission.

Flexing our thinking muscles in Brussels!

by Seema on 13/10/2021 No comments

Teaching and advocating for zero waste is rarely a simple case of passing on knowledge, like with a mathematical formula. For the knowledge to be accepted, it usually requires an accompanying shift in people’s values and behaviour. Changing someone’s whole world view is never going to be easy. However, after a week spent in Belgium this September, the task seems a little more achievable!

As Programme Director for the global Trash Hero network, I was privileged to take part in the Erasmus+ pilot project, “Building a European Zero Waste Academy” (BEZWA), organised by Let’s Do It Foundation, Zero Waste Europe and Ekologi brez meja, with the support of Tallinn University and the Estonian University of Life Sciences. The BEZWA project’s twin goals are to create:

1) a strong curriculum to teach zero waste ambassadors, who can then advocate for zero waste cities and communities; and
2) a network of skilled trainers who can train these ambassadors – and others – effectively.

The ambassadors’ curriculum was tested live at a training in Slovenia in early September for those just starting on their zero waste journey; I joined the second stage “training of trainers”, alongside NGO colleagues from France, Germany, Slovenia, Ukraine, Cyprus and Estonia, held at the end of the same month in Brussels.

There was a range of experience present, but most of us had developed our training skills on the job, without formal qualifications and simply following common practice. The intensive 5-day course put us all through our paces and turned our preconceived notions of teaching upside down.

There was no sitting through dull Powerpoints with “tips and tricks”. Instead we discovered the inner workings of the brain. We explored new training methods based on educational psychology – that were simultaneously being used on us! These methods empower students to take ownership of their learning, rather than being passive recipients of facts.

Our own knowledge of zero waste was challenged on many levels and we engaged in a variety of activities from improv sessions to designing and teaching mini-workshops. There was also space for quiet reflection. All of this stretched and exercised our thinking muscles in unexpected ways.

In between, we found time to visit a community compost project, support the city’s zero waste restaurants and even take part in a Break Free From Plastic protest against EU waste exports outside the European Commission and Council.

It was an endlessly thought-provoking and stimulating few days, completed by the warm, supportive energy of being with like-minded people and sharing our different experiences.

The benefits to Trash Hero will be felt immediately. So much of our work is about education and these new perspectives will help to build capacity within our network and to shape and refine our programmes. The knowledge will be shared with our country coordinators as we move forward with planning our Zero Waste Communities training. And it can even be incorporated into our family meetings for volunteers once they start up again next year.

We are grateful to have had the opportunity to attend the training and to all the teaching and coordination team who made it happen. The BEZWA project will continue with follow-up sessions for all participants and assessment of outcomes until September 2022.

Trash Hero has concluded the 2021 brand audit

by Martyna Morawska on 06/10/2021 No comments

The data collection for the 2021 brand audit has been successfully completed! This year, 141 brand audits were carried out across 58 chapters in 8 countries, including Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Despite working under the challenging circumstances of COVID-19, our organisation has submitted roughly 50% more brand audit reports compared to last year.

Brand audits have been organised by Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) since 2018 to identify and hold to account the world’s top polluters through the categorisation of branded plastic packaging collected during cleanups. The results can be used as evidence of the scale of consumer-goods-related pollution, and push the biggest manufacturers to take responsibility for the plastic waste they produce. As a part of this movement, Trash Hero shares the common mission to bring about systemic change and promote real solutions to eliminate the need for single-use packaging and shift towards a circular economy.

We would like to thank all Trash Hero chapters and volunteers who participated in this year’s brand audit. The report is anticipated to be published by the end of October*. Trash Hero will contribute translations of the executive summary into Thai and Malaysian, in order to increase the media coverage worldwide.

*Update: link to the 2021 Brand Audit Report

Zero Waste Communities volunteer training

by Seema on 10/12/2020 4 comments

With our cleanup programme now well established in dozens of locations around Southeast Asia, many of our volunteers are ready to take things to the next level: to move beyond picking up the trash and initiate community-level waste reduction programmes, in conjunction with local authorities.

It was with this in mind that we embarked on the “Trash Hero Zero Waste Communities” training programme, the first of hopefully many collaborations with our esteemed partners in the Break Free From Plastic movement. Based on a concept developed by Let’s Do It Foundation and organised by their educators, the programme brought together European and Southeast Asian experts from organisations such as Zero Waste Europe, GAIA Asia-Pacific and YPBB, as well as leading regional academics. The goal was to combine technical knowledge about waste management with the real life examples, skills and networking needed to kick start a zero waste project in participants’ own communities.

Due to the pandemic, the training was conducted online with volunteers in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia in October and November 2020. The 2-day sessions introduced topics such as:
– Principles of circular economy
– Community waste auditing
– Building convincing arguments for zero waste (overview of false solutions and greenwashing)
– Real life examples of zero waste projects in Asia
and also included group work and discussion. They gave a basic overview of zero waste principles and strategies and laid the groundwork for the next stage of the programme: planning their own initiative and getting people on board.

The English language presentations prepared for the training by Dr. Enzo Favoino (Zero Waste Europe) and Miko Aliño (GAIA Asia-Pacific), along with that of the Malaysian incinerator expert, Mr Lam Choong Wah, can be found on our YouTube channel:

Note: the English presentations are an incomplete set of what was shown, as other contributions were in local languages. To view the full set of training materials in Indonesian, Thai or Malay, please visit our channel playlists. These playlists also include the English presentations dubbed into local languages, which we did to facilitate understanding of the often quite complex subject matter.

Despite the challenges of holding an online training programme, we were able to recruit a total of 81 participants for the live events. Out of these, 70 completed the two days and a further 51 did a follow-up activity to gain a certificate as a Zero Waste Practitioner (foundation level).

Feedback from the participants was overwhelmingly positive regarding the opportunity to learn about these topics, and the quality of the content; however the limitations of online interaction, connectivity issues and the need to accomodate a wide range of time zones were felt by many to be obstacles to learning. We received multiple suggestions to hold the next training session in person to allow for more in-depth discussion.

Restrictions permitting, that is exactly what we intend to do in 2021. It is clear that there is an appetite for this kind of knowledge and, if provided in local language direct to our volunteers on the ground, the potential to create real impact is there too.

Trash Hero’s corporate partners

by Roman Peter on 13/10/2020 No comments

With all the negative media coverage about plastic pollution, it feels like consumer goods and petrochemical companies are queuing up to fund environmental organisations. Sponsoring cleanups and recycling initiatives allows them to show they are doing something about the problem, while at the same time laying the blame for it on the “irresponsible consumer”.

A comic depiction of industry tactics from Changing Markets Foundation

So why isn’t Trash Hero World playing this game? As a relatively new and fast-growing non-profit, we could certainly use the funds. Many would also argue that it makes sense to work with all players – especially big multinational companies – so that change can happen more effectively.

While we remain open to everyone, this type of financial collaboration usually only benefits the parties involved. And it can actually block progress in the wider sense. Every dollar Trash Hero might take from a plastic producer only slows down real change and real solutions. If we work together on some “green” – or greenwashing – campaign and let them take credit for being “part of the solution”, then there is no pressure or incentive to redesign packaging and delivery systems that will actually make a difference. It stays business as usual and we’ll continue to pick up their trash for decades to come.

A cleanup with brand audit in Thailand

Instead of PR and marketing campaigns, we believe that these companies’ budgets should be spent on tackling the plastic crisis at the source: their own operations. Funding organisations to do cleanups, or find new ways to recycle, will never be efficient or sufficient enough to solve the problem. To stop plastic pollution, we need to stop making plastic. Anything else is a distraction.

Trash Hero World decided from the start that we would not take any corporate funding that could compromise our values or sidetrack our goal of zero waste. We spent many years as an all-volunteer organisation because of this, slowly gaining the support of foundations and other grant-giving bodies who still support us today. Along the way, we have turned down offers from Coca-Cola, Unilever and many more, asking them to invest the money they would have given us in deposit return schemes and other real solutions.

We wrote down our terms for working with companies in our ethical funding policy, which we still use to guide all decisions on accepting sponsorship. Because of this, we remain fully independent and free to share our data with research projects such as Break Free From Plastic’s brand audit that hold polluting companies to account. And we can also look every single volunteer and supporter in the eye with a clean conscience, knowing that our activities are never funded by the producers of the trash we want to stop.

WORKING TOGETHER FOR A BETTER WORLD

Schnarwiler’s circular model

Refusing money from the plastics industry and those connected with it does not mean that we are anti-corporate per se. In fact, Trash Hero’s position on working with corporate partners is the same one we have in every area: encouraging positive action! We want to work with companies who are actively doing the right thing, rather than saying they plan to do the right thing, maybe, within 5 years.

Impact Acoustic joins a cleanup in Luzern

Companies such as Schnarwiler AG, Halm, Impact Acoustic and MIZU are demonstrating new ways of doing business that are both environmentally and socially sustainable. From the raw materials to the ability to refill or reuse the products, each is making a real contribution to a circular economy. We have found different ways to collaborate with each one and we are grateful to all for their support.

Promoting local champions in Thailand

Of course, partnerships do not have to involve money. Throughout the Trash Hero global network, our chapters freely promote businesses in their area doing their part to reduce waste. From refill shops to coffee shops that accept “bring your own” cups, we support everyone “walking the talk” to defeat plastic pollution. These local champions are living proof that zero waste is possible and – as public opinion shifts – the big companies will eventually have to follow suit. We’ll be here to celebrate them when they do.

Trash Hero takes part in research project to discover “world’s top polluters”

by Seema on 03/10/2020 No comments

As Trash Heroes, we know a community cleanup is one of the most effective ways to help people understand the impact of plastic pollution and create the positive energy needed for change. But we also know cleanups on their own are not a long term solution to the problem of plastic waste. For that, we need to go to the source.

That’s why Trash Hero has joined forces with Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) again this year for a mass data collection project focusing on “brand audits”.

Brand Audits September 2020 in Baubau, Indonesia and Basel, Switzerland.

A “brand audit” is a detailed log of the plastic found during a regular cleanup. It records the date; location; type of material and the number of layers in each piece; and then the name of the producer, if it’s still visible. The data is collected in a systematic way and – for this project – from a wide range of locations on a global scale, involving many different NGOs and volunteers.

BFFP, as the coordinator of the project, will then compile and interpret the collected data for their annual Brand Audit Report (results of the 2019 report here). The results serve as evidence of the scale and provenance of consumer-goods-related pollution. They enable BFFP to push the biggest manufacturers of this plastic waste to change the way they make and deliver their products.

This year’s report is due out in early December. Trash Hero World has committed to make the findings available in Indonesian, Thai and Malaysian to amplify the media coverage in Southeast Asia.

Brand Audits September 2020 in Nagekeo, Indonesia and Tuaran, Malaysia

To broaden the dataset, Trash Hero World and BFFP provided brand audit training for Trash Hero volunteers in several different countries in August and September. It was a new experience for most of them: gathering and recording the information is a fairly labour-intensive process, but one that proved to be both eye-opening and fun. In the lead up to the official data collection period, Trash Hero Canggu in Indonesia collected 140 unrecyclable tubes of toothpaste from a single brand (Pepsodent, by Unilever) in just one hour!

The data collection period lasted six weeks, coming to an end on 30 September 2020. Although the results are still coming in, our estimates show that around 80 brand audits were carried out by Trash Hero volunteers in around 60 locations in the northern, southern, eastern and western hemispheres.

This is more than four times the number of brand audits we submitted as an organisation last year and should in the end make up around one-sixth of the total brand audits contributed to the project globally this year (final numbers TBC). We are very proud of our citizen scientists, many of whom were working under challenging conditions due to COVID-19. We will publish the outcomes of the whole project in a future post.

Brand Audits September 2020 in Koh Samed, Thailand and Saba, Bali

The Trash Hero chapters that carried out a brand audit for this project include:

INDONESIA
Trash Hero Ambon, Trash Hero Amed, Trash Hero Belu, Trash Hero Baubau, Trash Hero Blahbatuh, Trash Hero Bandung, Trash Hero Bunaken, Trash Hero Batubulan, Trash Hero Bogor, Trash Hero Canggu, Trash Hero Candidasa, Trash Hero Depok, Trash Hero Ende, Trash Hero Jimbaran, Trash Hero Kelimutu, Trash Hero Kendari, Trash Hero Kertalangu, Trash Hero Komodo, Trash Hero Kupang, Trash Hero Lembata, Trash Hero Larantuka, Trash Hero Lovina, Trash Hero Mamuju, Trash Hero Muba, Trash Hero Nagekeo, Trash Hero Pemuteran, Trash Hero Payangan, Trash Hero Raja Ampat, Trash Hero Saba, Trash Hero Sanur, Trash Hero Tanjung

MALAYSIA
Trash Hero Banting, Trash Hero Cherating, Trash Hero Ipoh, Trash Hero Johor Bahru, Trash Hero Papar, Trash Hero Perlis, Trash Hero Langkawi, Trash Hero Sintok, Trash Hero Temerloh, Trash Hero Tuaran

NETHERLANDS
Trash Hero Amsterdam

ROMANIA
Trash Hero Vatra Dornei

SERBIA
Trash Hero Beograd

SWITZERLAND
Trash Hero Basel, Trash Hero Bern, Trash Hero Fribourg, Trash Hero Luzern, Trash Hero Solothurn, Trash Hero Winterthur

THAILAND
Trash Hero Bangkok, Trash Hero Pattaya, Trash Hero Koh Phi Phi, Trash Hero Hua Hin, Trash Hero Chumphon, Trash Hero Koh Jum, Trash Hero Koh Samed, Trash Hero Koh Samui

UK
Trash Hero UK (London and Newcastle)