BBC to launch multi-platform initiative to help reduce plastic pollution

The BBC is to launch a major initiative that it hopes will “positively enable” the British public to reduce plastic pollution.

The new ‘Plastics Watch’ campaign will incorporate a website, TV programmes, social media and educational live streaming into classrooms to educate and inform the public as to the environmental impacts of plastic waste.

The website will include guidance on recycling and ideas for re-use, whereas the television programmes will focus on science and wildlife, as well as campaign-based documentaries.

The new initiative comes six months on from the final episode of Blue Planet II, which saw 62 percent of surveyed UK audiences say they wanted to make changes in their daily lives to reduce pollution of our oceans.

Commenting, Sir David Attenborough, presenter of Blue Planet II, said:“We hoped that Blue Planet II would open people’s eyes to the damage that we are doing to our oceans and the creatures that live in them. I’ve been absolutely astonished at the result that that programme has had.”

The Plastic Watch initiative ties in with the BBC’s own ambitions for use of plastics, after it announced earlier this year that it would eliminate the use of all ‘single-use’ items by 2020.