The event will connect entrepreneurship with thought leadership and environmental sustainability.

The contest will be juried by leaders in industry and science including Eben Bayer (Ecovative), Mike Biddle (MBA Polymers), Julie Corbett (Ecologic), Adam Lowry (Method), Dr. Ramani Narayan, Bina Venkataraman (MIT/Harvard Brode Institute), Mike Velings (A-Spark Good Ventures) and Adam Werbach (Yerdle). The presentation of awards and the final public event will take place at the Think Beyond Plastic annual conference on June 13-14, 2013 in Berkeley, CA, in front of an audience of entrepreneurs, investors, journalists and thought leaders. Think Beyond Plastic, a project of the Plastic Pollution Coalition, is dedicated to fostering a spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation in addressing the plastic pollution crisis. Plastic pollution is a problem that the world has just begun to understand. It is massive and urgent. Recycling is not an adequate solution to the increasing consumption of disposable plastic. We will feature solutions that will support the call to reduce the planetary plastic footprint.

Created by university students, Day Without a Bottle is a day of action and awareness around one of the main contributors to plastic pollution: bottled water (and other beverages bottled in disposable plastic). The event proposes to halt the purchase of disposable plastic bottles for one day on campus. The strategy to create a Day Without a Bottle has the following components:

• raise awareness about the risk bottled water poses to the environment and to ourselves.  
• raise awareness about the easy alternatives  to buying beverages bottled in plastic (ie. hydration stations, reusables etc.)
• distribute free reusable stainless steel bottles as an incentive to participate in events
• collect pledge signatures of promise to refuse disposable plastic
• host representatives from organizations and business that support stopping plastic pollution. This will raise awareness about plastic free initiatives, business, and environmental impacts, and will include information tables, lectures, workshops and film screenings.

How do I host my own Day Without a Bottle or get more involved? Contact Plastic Free Campuses at campus@plasticpollutioncoalition.org

A Day Without a Bottle is about showing students that they can reduce plastic consumption and waste with a simple solution: A reusable bottle. With brand new hydration stations installed all over the UC Santa Barbara campus, students have even more options to stay hydrated and help the earth! With reusable bottles, students prevent thousands of plastic bottles entering the landfills around campus! A Day Without a Bottle shows that UC Santa Barbara students are making the change to convenient, cheap, sustainable alternatives to disposable plastic water bottles.

Join them on April 1st and pledge to use reusable bottles. You may even win some awesome prizes!

Brought to you by the Plastic Pollution Coalition at UCSB.

Much has been made of the “end of the Mayan calendar”, but none of the Mayan Elders view it as the end of anything. Instead, the Maya identified this monumental transition as an opportunity to realign priorities based on the “feminine principles” of love, gratitude, care and respect for both humanity and our environment.

Don Tomás Calvo Mateo is the highest moral authority of the Maya. He is head of the Order of the Mayan Lords, keepers of the Popol Vuh, the Mayan Book of Creation. And on December 22, 2012, he reached out to the world in a way that has never been done before. “Our message,” he said to me, “must find everyone, all of humanity – because we need each other. We must unite our minds, our hearts and bodies: another world is possible!”

The ancient town was alive with the combined energy of thousands of people. Fires, the  symbols of new beginnings, blazed all through the night. And the Mayan Queen sent us all a message of love and understanding. “We honor you, our brothers and sisters, and we wish to share our love for this earth with you!”

Our commitment to the people of Chichicastenango is to support them in keeping plastic out of their lives. The refillable glass bottles we saw everywhere in town were a great alternative to mountains of plastic trash at the end of the celebration.  When Don Tomás Calvo officially ushered the new era at a midnight ceremony at the Mayan cemetery, we were offered Mayan hot chocolate in beautiful earthenware cups.

Solutions to the plastic bottle crisis are not easy nor obvious. Guatemala is second to Haiti in the usage of bottled water. Despite the abundance of rain, the water is not potable. But plastic bottles are not a sustainable alternative. Identifying new, sustainable alternatives and developing a broadbased educational campaign about the dangers of plastic is the purpose of the newly formed PPC-Guatemala. Its founding members are Anna Ingrid Padilla, Proyecto perspectivas; Ruby Cole from Green Council Guatemala and Ninotchka Matute, Fundación Crecer. We are excited to launch Plastic Free Campuses in early 2013 and to find local, sustainable alternatives to plastic pollution.

The agency has awarded funding to Plastic Pollution Coalition (PPC) and four other mission-driven organizations, all members of PPC—the Product Stewardship Institute (PSI), As You Sow, the Clean Water Fund, and the California Product Stewardship Council (CPSC)—to collaborate on a plan to expand the program to the UC campuses at Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco.

As partners, these organizations will work together to create and implement a program to reduce plastic pollution at the source. Each organization brings a unique set of skills and expertise to the table, ensuring that the project is strong, robust, and successful. Goals include:

• Expanding and scaling up PPC’s Plastic Free Campuses program to three UC campuses using PPC’s plastic footprinting tool;
• Working with publicly owned fast food chains located on participating UC campuses to switch out plastic food service packaging for alternative, more environmentally preferable packaging—a task led by As You Sow;
• Working with food service providers on campus to switch out plastic food service packaging for paper-based alternatives—a task led by PSI;
• Developing toolkits for UC procurement staff to help them purchase alternatives to disposable items—a task led by California Product Stewardship Council;
• Developing a legislative policy model for source reduction, presenting this model on a webinar, and distributing it to municipalities—a task led by the Clean Water Fund.

We look forward to expanding the program to campuses around the world. Please contact us at campus@plasticpollutoncoalition.org with your ideas or partnership opportunities.

The time has come to work to PREVENT this terrible disease!

Mounting scientific evidence shows that our risk of breast cancer is increased by exposures to chemicals in our everyday environment—chemicals in our food, our products, our air and our water. Chemicals linked to breast cancer can be found in cosmetics, cleaning products, food can linings, certain kinds of store receipts, and the list goes on. And it’s not just breast cancer – many chemicals have been linked to a wide array of health impacts such as other cancers, reproductive disorders, immune suppression, diabetes and other metabolic disorders, cardiovascular disease, learning disabilities and autism.

One source for these chemicals – the various forms of plastics in our everyday lives. Chemicals like Styrene (used in Styrofoam), Vinyl Chloride and Dioxins (found in PVC, the most common form of plastic), bisphenol A (BPA) (used in hard clear plastics), and phthalates (an additive used to soften plastics, including PVC). These chemicals are either known or likely to cause cancer, or they look like hormones to our body and can disrupt our sensitive chemical balance. You can learn more about this issue on Plastic Free Times. 

Research in the U.S. shows that many of these chemicals are leaching out of plastic products and into our bodies. BPA was found in over 90% and phthalates were found in over 75% of the U.S. population. There is no reason to believe that these numbers would be any different overseas.

PPC member, Breast Cancer Fund (www.breastcancerfund.org) has resources to help you make personal and political choices to reduce our exposure to toxic chemicals.

What about the pink ribbons?

Any company can put a pink ribbon on its products. The widely recognized pink ribbon symbol is not regulated by any agency and does not necessarily mean it effectively combats the breast cancer epidemic. (source: ThinkBeforeYouPink.org)

Pink ribbons have been criticized for promoting overconsumption and redundant purchasing. Many survivors are furious that companies are profiting off of disease by encouraging overconsumption.

Lets make October Breast Cancer PREVENTION Month: together, lets get toxic chemicals and the products they are used in, out of our day-to-day life. Everyone can make a difference!

Plastic Pollution Coalition suggests to begin by REFUSing single use and disposable plastics, then reduce your total plastic footprint.

While we mourn the loss of a great leader and extend our sympathy to President Mills’ family, we are hopeful for Ghana’s future under President Mahama’s strong leadership. His forward-thinking approach to addressing his nation’s environmental issues, chief among them the build-up of toxic disposable plastic in the natural world, led us to first begin our partnership in October 2010 to address how single-use waste is impacting Ghana and the African continent as a whole. As a notable supporter of the Plastic Pollution Coalition, His Excellency has been a powerful advocate to the cause of ridding the world of disposable plastics. As the leader of his nation, we believe his efforts to protect and defend the natural world will continue have a far-reaching impact and serve as a model to others.

As President Mahama assumes his new role, we look forward to supporting his ongoing work to rid Ghana’s beautiful natural environment of plastic pollution. You can see His Excellency discuss plastic pollution in Ghana here.

There is a film in the making that could change this forever.  Midway, by renowned visual artist Chris Jordan, tells a story so beautiful, powerful and transformative that is poised to become a cultural landmark, fostering a global and irreversible shift in the relationship between humans and plastic waste. The trailer is embedded below.

For this essential film to be finalized we need your urgent help.  Please visit Midway’s Kickstarter and consider donating and /or sharing the link (http://kck.st/LGdTxs ) with your networks.

 Please do this today. There are only a few days left!!

MIDWAY : trailer : a film by Chris Jordan from Midway on Vimeo.

Thank you so much!

Manuel Maqueda
Co-founder, Plastic Pollution Coalition

Manuel Maqueda, cofounder of Plastic Pollution Coalition, is also member of the Midway Film Project. Chris Jordan is a founding member, an advisor and supporter of Plastic Pollution Coalition since its inception.