Hands-on cleaning.
We teamed with our Clean to Planet Hero Lizzie Carr at Hackney’s Festival of Fitness to spread the word about plastic pollution locally and globally while volunteers signed up to join Lizzie stand-up paddle boarding. From Planet Patrol veterans to eco-conscious first-time paddle boarders, they came in groups to scour the canals for floating plastic and random debris. From traffic cones and handsaws to plastic bottles a plenty, a tonne-bag of waste was collected from a one-mile stretch in London’s Hackney Marshes, with only one fall in, which is pretty good odds if you’re thinking about trying it out…
Tackling plastic pollution - there’s an app for that.
Physical litter picking, while immediately helpful to the local community, isn’t actually the main goal, it’s logging the examples of plastic pollution identified in each haul. Each collection bucket was emptied out, separated and each piece of plastic logged into predetermined categories using the Planet Patrol app (available for android and iOS, wink). All this data is sent to scientists at the University of Nottingham to help analyse and understand the types of plastic collected, in what area and from which brand. It helps build a case of evidence to bring to big companies to change their single-use-plastic reliance, and switch to something more sustainable as well as helping determine where a plastic cleanup would be most beneficial to the local area.
Our Black Friday Canal Cleanup.
You may remember we pledged to give a minute of our time, from every order taken during Black Friday to cleaning up London’s waterways. Well, we’re true to our word. With members of our London HQ, we walked London’s Regent’s Canal from Kings Cross to Hackney Wick, collecting and bagging the recyclables and trash (separately, obv) we found along the way. Wearing our Clean to Planet t-shirts and our Clean Screen SPF 30, we collected rubbish that could find its way into the waterway and consequently lead to more ocean plastic pollution. Super-rewarding and humbling, we got a lot of ‘thank you’s’ from passers-by and we’re hoping that our newfound fans see how easy it is to get involved. Plus, how local-litter picking can impact the bigger picture of our ocean health, too.
Shop Clean Lifestyle.
We’re branching out. We’ve just launched a new lifestyle section of the site to celebrate brands that share our vision of sustainability. Hand-picked by us, they’re a group of companies that work with waste materials, upcycling them into daily-use items and keeping them out of our landfill and oceans.
Essentially, they’re giving would-be waste a second life, and if you’ve tried our ocean plastic Atlantic Kelp and Magnesium favourites - you’ll know we’re into that. We’ve selected six brands for launch and we’re aiming to recruit more, giving sustainable innovators a platform to sell their waste-stopping solutions. If you’ve got a great Clean to Planet product - reach out via our contact form, and you could appear on our shop real soon.