Bishop Harold joins ‘Rubbish Campaign’ as report reveals devastating effects of plastic pollution
New research published by Tearfund has found that someone dies every 30 seconds due to plastic pollution.
Bishop Harold, a Tearfund UK ambassador and board member, is highlighting the effects of plastic on the world’s poor by joining the ‘Rubbish Campaign‘ and going plastic–free.
The bishop was at Tearfund’s Theological Committee meeting when he had a eureka moment: “Someone said they had been trying to reduce their use of plastic. I wondered if it was possible to get back to Belfast from London without using any. I found it impossible to find anything not wrapped in plastic! Suddenly I saw it in the same way as I saw smoking when I was a teenager. People smoked on buses, planes, cafes…I thought it was completely normal, until it was banned and saw it with different eyes. Poor waste management is every bit as dangerous as smoking to the life of the planet, to the lives of people. It’s dangerous to us.”
Bishop Harold’s comments come after a new report by Tearfund has revealed for the first time that one person is dying every 30 seconds in developing countries from diseases and illnesses caused by plastic pollution and uncollected rubbish dumped or burnt near homes. It found that each year between 400,000 and a million people (at the upper end one person every 30 seconds) are dying in developing countries from illnesses and diseases like diarrhoea, malaria and cancers caused by living near uncollected waste and plastic pollution.
The new figures were released earlier this month in a report called No Time to Waste: Tackling the Plastic Pollution Crisis Before It’s Too Late by international relief and development agency Tearfund, in collaboration with conservation charity Fauna & Flora International (FFI), the Institute of Development Studies and waste management charity WasteAid.
The report calls on multinational companies to fundamentally change their business models by committing to reporting the number of single–use plastic items they distribute in developing countries by 2020, and halving this by 2025.
Bishop Harold adds that, “The Christian faith is about looking out for our neighbour. It is about sacrifice and what appears to be a tougher way, but a better way. It is a challenge to individualism, a return to the way of thinking that used to inhabit this society in Ireland. I grew up in a working–class area of Belfast and everybody was there for each other: if someone didn’t have enough money, somebody would help them out. When my mother was old, neighbours would bring round soup for her every lunchtime. It was part of what it was to live in community. When we live as part of a global community, we are able to consider how our actions affect others.” He continues, ‘‘Companies should promote a circular economy. Things should be reused, and people’s skills should be developed: that is good business.”
Aid and development charity Tearfund, is also asking supporters to take on personal challenges by giving up an item of single–use plastic for 40 days: the time it takes to form a habit. “The campaign is an opportunity to make a change. Do something specific”, Bishop Harold advises. He also encourages people to be vocal: “We started saying, ‘I intended to buy more but I couldn’t find anything that wasn’t wrapped in plastic’ while we were shopping. We got some funny looks!”
“All of these steps, individually and collectively, mean that we are following our biblical mandate to care for the world and its inhabitants. As St James writes in his epistle: faith without works is dead. If we are proclaiming words, and they aren’t lived out in the way in which we do community, love the poor and care for the planet, then they are only words. Let’s hold the lot together.”
The ‘Rubbish Campaign’ is now live at www.tearfund.org/rubbish.