Kids are Amazing!

Well we know that don’t we?  Our children are the future and we are responsible for ensuring that we leave a world that is sustainable for their future.

So when I see that a growing number of children are taking action to clean up their environment and engaging other children to help them, it makes me feel ashamed.   We adults are making such a mess of the world that it has become necessary for these young people to try to clean it up themselves!

The parents of these children must be justifiably proud of their offspring, but it really should not be left to our children to clean up our mess!

Update on the Stars of the future:

  • 9 year old Primary school girl Molly Steer from Cairns, Australia, took to the stage in a Ted-X talk about the problem with plastic straws and damage it does to wildlife.  Molly started her Straw-no-More campaign to rid her town and the Great barrier Reef of single use plastic straws. She started with her school, but her campaign quickly spread to other primary schools and has now been taken up by more than 10,000 students across Australia.
    Follow Molly on her Facebook page
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  • Lilly is a 9 year old, originally from UK who now lives in the Netherlands.  Lilly picksup litter all over her community and encourages her friends and neighbours to do the same.  Lilly is an animal lover and is upset by the polution that is harming the wildlife and our planet. She has persuaded her local Mcdonalds to switch to  paper straws  and paper tops for their cups and even stopped local companies releasing balloons. Lilly and her family recently founded Lilly’s Plastic Pickup to raise awareness about the plastic polution problem.
    Follow Lilly on her Facebook page
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  • 11 year old Connor,  in San Marcos, California, has started a group called MicroActivist, which organises beach clean-ups and aims to educate other young people to care for and protect the environment.    Their mission is to coordinate activities to educate and bring awareness about issues, marine wildlife and places that are in need.
    Read More about Connor and MicroActivists
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  • In 2008, 9 year-old Katie, came home from school with a cabbage seedling, Katie looked after her plant until it grew to a huge 40lb cabbage!  Katie donated her cabbage to a local soup kitchen where it helped to feed over 275 people.  Katie was so inspired that her cabbage could feed so many that she realised that a whole vegetable plot could feed many more people.
    This was the start of  Katies Krops.   Katie now has 100 vegetable gardens across the country and has donated thousands and thousands of pounds of fresh produce to people in need.
    Read More about Katies Krops
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  • At only 3 years old – Ryan went with his dad to the local recycling bank and cashed in a few small bags of cans and bottles. Entrepreneur Ryan decided to supply his neighbours with bags and ask them to collect cans and bottles for him, which they gladly did, so did family and his parents friends.
    This was the start of Ryans Recycling. Today Ryan has customers all over Orange County, CA. His goal is to recycle to keep cans and bottles from reaching the ocean where it’s harmful to the environment. Ryan spends a part of every week sorting through cans and bottles from his customers and getting them ready to take to the recycle centre.
    Read More about RyansRecycling
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  • At 18, Dutch inventor Boyan Slat, developed a method to clean up the ocean of plastics.   By using the natural ocean currents, Boyan realised that plastic garbage could be guided into tighter areas where it could be collected more easily.   The Ocean Cleanup now has a staff of more than 60 engineers, researchers, scientists and computational modellers working daily to rid the world’s the oceans of plastic.
    Read More about Boyan Stat and the Ocean Cleanup

So, what sort of a world do we want to leave to our children and grandchildren?  Are we doing enough?  I don’t think so!

 

I am sure there are many more young Eco Warriors and Activists, we will publish more when we hear about them.