LLC Newsletter July2021 View this email in your browser

The Litter Less Campaign is a joint initiative of the Mars Wrigley Foundation and Foundation for Environmental Education which aims to reduce litter and affect long-term behaviour change among youth around the world.

Litter Less Campaign Newsletter

July 2021

Despite 2020/2021 being another school year highly impacted by COVID-19, all countries managed to implement and finalise the campaign. It is clear to see that National Operators, teachers, students, and parents are getting more used to LLC meetings and activities taking place online and/or at home, which does bring about some benefits in terms of communication and collaboration. However, the schools have faced an extraordinary level of uncertainty the past year which make their efforts in the campaign remarkable. We hope you are so excited as we were to discover their stories. Get inspired of these following examples of how countries have been able to take action within the Covid-19 guidelines! Find more highlights from the Litter Less Campaign 2020/2021 on the Eco-Schools and Young Reporters for the Environment websites.

Trash Hack and Global Action Days were also big and successful LLC events this year! Don't hesitate to take a look! It reached over 5000 participants!

The Litter Less Campaign also participated to the YRE International competition 2021! Follow this link to see every entry. You can even support them by clicking on ENJOY on the upper right corner and by sharing their incredible work to highlight it! Videos, articles and photos reportage have been prepared and pre-selected by a professional team from FEE Head Office. The winners will be selected by the Jury and announced at the beginning of September 2021.

We hope you will enjoy the read!
The International Litter Less Campaign Team

Key Results from Litter Less Campaign 2020/2021

Now the Northern Hemisphere countries are done with the second year of Phase IV, and the Southern Hemisphere countries are in the middle of year two, we have compiled all data from their reports. We are very proud to see that most countries have managed to carry out their Community Action Days, at school or from home, and are finding new ways of engaging their students in litter and waste activities.

The infographic below shows some of the LLC's achievements during 2020/2021, including a reduction by 80% of waste produced at student's home and a community of 404.937 students!

Litter Less Campaign stories
A small overview

A creative and participatory solution to recover the school garden (Spain)

Due to the future collapse of a building, the CEIP Virgen del Rosario school lost its school garden. Schoolers proposed to recover it and its activity by making a greenhouse in a glazed corridor of the school. They imagined flowerpots made with reused containers and with water use systems. The flowerpots have been made by families and the sowing has been done by teachers and students since January.
They also carried out a waste cleaning with the students on the roads, the
countryside and the village stream.

This story just like many other ones shows that with imagination, there always is solutions!

Two competitions and a lot of imagination (Wales)

Highlights for Wales include 2 competitions that we ran alongside our focused schools. We were really pleased with school involvement and the enthusiasm to do something positive around litter issues in their communities, especially in these challenging times.

The first one was created in lockdown to support schools and maintain engagement. The #Litterlesstogether UK and Ireland competition, which was our first national operator collaboration, involved school challenges that included raising awareness through poster creation, creating something new and useful through upcycling or carrying out a litter hunt and taking pictures in the local community. This was well received here in Wales with over 200 entries!

When schools were reopened, the second competition was created, we ran in Wales asked pupils to create their Litter Less message to the community (after they had done some investigation and created some litter actions). We had an extra 50 entries for this and positive feedback, all stating they would be interested to take part again. You can find some examples of messages in the following text :

“One person can start the change, one group can influence others, one community can make a difference for future generations. This is not one person’s problem; it is everyone’s problem.”

“Let's work as a team to keep the world clean.”

“Think clean, think tidy, think a better community.”

We asked for teacher highlights to the campaign and so many of them stated how enthusiastic their pupils were to make a difference and how proud they were of them! Teacher highlight included " the children strongly believed in this campaign, they didn't need to be told that littering is bad, they knew it and had a lot to say on the subject"! As proof, none less than 20 schools participated!

A simple act for a nice action (India)

Did you know: Fruits and vegetables peels can be source of nutrients for plants. The leftovers from fruits and vegetables can be mixed with water, so the nutrients are absorbed by the water. The mixture should then be filtered through a sieve before it is ready to be used as fertilized water for plants.

Tip: Just replace regular water with this fertilized water and see how your plants bloom!

There is no little action to act for the environment!

Find out more here.

Check out all their work in the Litter Less Campaign categories running in the YRE competition:

YRE Competition

Forward

The Litter Less Campaign is a joint initiative of the Mars Wrigley Foundation and Foundation for Environmental Education which aims to reduce litter and affect long-term behaviour change among youth around the world.

“Think clean, think tidy, think a better community.”

Read more stories about the Litter Less Campaign from other schools:

Check out all their work in the Litter Less Campaign categories running in the YRE competition: