One teenager has had enough of plastic waste and has decided to do something about it.
Seventeen-year-old Tabby Fletcher lives on the Isle of Jura, which is located off the west coast of Scotland. After a recent storm, Tabby observed the devastating impact that plastic waste had not only on the natural beauty of her home but also on wildlife and other animals.
"In January, we had Storm Éowyn," Tabby told The Guardian. "Huge storm surges brought piles of plastic onto the beach close to my house. I saw dead birds wrapped in plastic. It was obvious from little bits inside their decomposing bodies they had eaten plastic."
Even local livestock was not spared from the inundation of plastic pollution.
"There was a dead goat, too — its head stuck in a plastic fishing net," Tabby continued, per The Guardian. "It's really horrible."
Rather than do nothing, Tabby took action. She started a petition to urge the Scottish government to take the dramatic step of banning all single-use plastics, The Guardian reported.
To date, Tabby's petition has gained more than 30,000 signatures along with support from members of the Scottish Parliament, and it is officially now under consideration.
A committee was to hold a session Sept. 24 to discuss Tabby's proposed ban on single-use plastics.
"I'm from a very small community," Tabby said, per The Guardian. "You don't get to aim big when you are somewhere small. So it's good to see people writing to me and having the same thoughts and beliefs as I have."
While Tabby has been encouraged by the response, she understands the monumental challenges facing her proposed ban.
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Heck yes 👍 "I'm hoping that Scotland will become the first country in the U.K. to ban single-use plastics," she said, according to The Guardian. "At the very least we should have a conversation to prove that it is possible."
Single-use plastics and plastic waste more broadly pose an enormous threat to human health and the environment. Scientists have detected microplastics and their even tinier counterparts, nanoplastics, inside human bodies.
While experts concede that much research remains to be done to understand the scope of risks posed by microplastics, evidence points to the severity of the problem.
"There are so many unknowns," said Bernardo Lemos of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, according to the publication Harvard Medicine. "But we are seeing more data that suggest microplastics affect human biology."
Those effects include damage to DNA as well as changes in gene activity, both of which are known precursors to cancer, per Harvard Medicine.
For a teenager from a remote part of Scotland, Tabby already has had an outsized impact, spreading awareness and expanding people's notions of what is possible.
"Around 50% of the plastic we use in the U.K. is single-use, and by cutting these items out, it creates a more sustainable footprint in the natural world," she said.
Regardless of your age, you can follow Tabby's lead and take climate action in your community.
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