Proactively Preventing Plastic Pollution
A pioneering Year 9 pupil has set up a one-stop-shop to help people reduce their contribution to plastic pollution.
When Honor started at South Hampstead, aged 7, she was already interested in green issues. By the time she moved to the Senior School, she had signed up to the lunchtime eco-club and was researching her concerns, such as plastic pollution, in much more depth. Since then, she has become increasingly aware of her own and her family’s environmental impact, eager to find solutions to reduce the 8 million tonnes of plastic entering the oceans each year.
Realising how hard it was to do a plastic-free shop for everyday household items, she began to investigate how and where she could source better alternatives. Last year, at the age of just 13, she set up her own website, to provide a convenient place for people to make their weekly purchases with a clear conscience. Her one-stop-shop, greenseas.io, stocks a growing range of household items, from shampoo bars and toothpaste tablets to cling-film alternatives made from beeswax.
Honor explains: “I’d like to make it really easy for everyone to be able to do a better weekly shop (minus the food) all in one place. I try to ensure each product I source is as good as it can be. I do as much research as possible – about ingredients, provenance, packaging – to help consumers make informed choices.”
Honor ran her first ‘offline shop’ at South Hampstead’s Festive Fair last term, where carrot and honey soaps, organic shea butter lip balms and FSC certified beechwood nailbrushes flew off the shelves. She now plans to improve and expand the range on offer on her website and spread the word to new customers, so that she can buy in bulk and reduce her prices.
As well as running a burgeoning business and blog, Honor is about to choose her GCSE options – Design & Technology, as one of her favourite subjects, will likely feature. “I enjoy the fact I’m encouraged to think creatively and come up with practical solutions to everyday problems.”
In the future, Honor is keen to run her own business, with a focus on environmental education. To find out more about Honor’s initiative and to support her venture, visit: greenseas.io
Last year, pupils launched Project Zero: an ambitious, student-led, environmental initiative with the aim to ensure all our buildings are as carbon neutral as possible and to significantly reduce our contribution to landfill by the school’s 150th anniversary in 2026. This includes taking steps towards becoming plastic-free (we no longer use single use plastic cups) and changing the way we view and dispose of waste, to help create a more sustainable future. Our iconic blue and gold penguins dotted throughout the school, by Belgian artist William Sweetlove, were commissioned in 2014 to inspire a community-wide conversation about the environmental impact of plastic usage and recycling – a conversation that continues to gather impetus and momentum.