We asked you to participate, last February, in our first challenge to pick up the cigarette butts that soil the most beautiful avenue in the world in Paris and you had been several dozen to answer it.
For this second My Earth challenge, plastic waste is, this time, in our sights.
With the makesense association, we invite you to join the ranks of a Parisian
clean walk
, a collection walk, on Saturday April 9 at the end of the morning around the port of Arsenal, next to the place de la Bastille, then along the quays.
Objective ?
Pick up as much waste as possible that is strewn on the ground and left abandoned.
“The idea is to snoop in places that are not covered by the agents responsible for the cleanliness of Paris, explains Hélène Binet, spokesperson for makesense.
It is also an action to raise awareness among the general public, since everyone can come and lend a hand, faced with the environmental consequences of this waste, on those which can or cannot be recycled.
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Since 2010, the year of its creation, the association has been working and developing awareness programs so that everyone can take action if they wish, with a view to “building a sustainable society”.
They end up in the sewers, the rivers, then the seas
There are all kinds of rubbish left on the asphalt and in the countless nooks at the foot of buildings and between the various street furniture.
Cigarette butts of course, wrappers, crushed chewing gum.
Those made of plastic will be the most targeted during this operation: water or soda bottles, with or without caps, food packaging, shopping bags or even fragments of various objects made of plastic.
560,000 tonnes of plastic waste are produced each year by households and businesses in the Ile-de-France region.
And only 14% is recycled, compared to 24% on average at the national level, according to a study published last November by the Regional Waste Observatory of Île-de-France (Ordif).
Those thrown away without any precaution represent not only a visual inconvenience but also a real pollution since most end up in the sewers, then the rivers, before ending up in the oceans.
According to makesense, if they end up in the Seine, they end up in the sea “which, in 2050, could well end up with more plastic than fish”…
The collection march, with its participants equipped with gloves and garbage bags (not to mention good shoes!), promises to be just as participatory as it is festive thanks to the animations.
Children are obviously welcome, a nice way to show them that we can act concretely and on a close scale to save our planet and fight against global warming.
Educational stops are also on the program, led by volunteers from the Objectif Zéro Plastique association.
Read alsoOnly 14% of plastic waste recycled in Île-de-France: solutions to get out of an infernal spiral
But one wonders what is the link between plastic and global warming.
"Do you know that it takes 2 liters of petroleum to make a one-liter plastic bottle," insists MakeSense.
Thus, a good gesture is sometimes to buy a glass bottle that we will fill each time rather than sticking to our habit of "good old" plastic...
It is also important to realize the benefits of sorting and recycling.
Everyone gets involved and almost everywhere, in cities, when you go on vacation in the mountains or in seaside resorts, multiple bins of different colors offer the possibility of "smart disposal", boxes and papers of one side, the glass on the other, household waste in another container and so on…” A tonne of recycled aluminium, notes the association, makes it possible to avoid the rejection of 6,890 kg CO2 equivalent, i.e. 45 900 km by car, which is more than around the world, which is crazy when you think about it”
See you on April 9 at 11 a.m. Place de la Bastille, in Paris.
Registration desired via the website
events.makesense.org
