Teenagers Worldwide Are Tackling the Plastics Crisis

W hen students in Singapore looked around their school cafeteria, they could see a problem shared all over the world: Single-use Styrofoam was ubiquitous. They soon learned that the school’s 2,000 students used 72,000 pieces of Styrofoam and other types of plastic every year.  To find a solution, they joined the Unplastify Challenge , a global movement initiated by the Latin American social enterprise Unplastify and funded by the National Geographic Society, a nonprofit that seeks to foster environmental stewardship. What makes the program unique is its audience, design and scope. Teenagers, usually 15 to 16 years old, design and implement solutions to “unplastify” their schools, communities, neighborhoods and homes. In Singapore, the students decided to campaign for multi-use lunch boxes, winning them first place in the Unplastify Challenge 2026, the 12th such event of its kind. A garbage-strewn beach in Bali, Indonesia. Unless effective action is taken, it’s predicted that global plastic production will more than double over the next 15 years. Credit: Mariia Ploshikhina / Shutterstock In the eight years since it began, Unplastify has worked with over 3,000 students at 400 schools in 25 countries, mostly in Latin America, but also in Africa, Asia, North America and Europe. Together these students have come up with over 1,000 strategies, leading efforts to avoid an estimated 72 tons of plastic.  In Chile, students have designed a biodegradable alternative to plastic glitter, thus avoiding four kilos of plastic in a single year. In Costa Rica, students have replaced plastic sponges with natural luffa. In Turkey, teenagers have researched biodegradable alternatives to medical equipment such as plastic gloves, eventually extending their work into health clinics. In Brazil, young people have worked with the supplier of their school uniforms to eliminate polyester, which is a petroleum-based plastic fiber. In Columbia, students have collaborated with grocers and butchers to replace plastic wrap with banana leaves.  Weighed down by negative news? Enter your email below to receive our smart, uplifting newsletters. Or click here to choose exactly which ones you want [contact-form-7] Instead of just raising awareness, Unplastify equips teenagers with the knowledge to have real-world impact — through project-based learning and hands-on action. Unplastify offers online training materials that help young people identify a problem, but the students themselves decide which issue they want to focus on and then come up with actionable ideas. Teachers mentor them to translate the ideas into implementation. Along the way, the teenagers learn how to do research, prepare and hold a presentation, organize teams, design branding and create social media content. “They learn project management with the excuse of unplastifying,” says Unplastify co-founder Augustina “Tati” Besada. Besada first understood the scope of the plastic problem when she ran the community recycling nonprofit Sure We Can in Brooklyn, New York, in 2016 to 2017. “Recycling doesn’t work,” she recalls realizing. Taking into account “how difficult it is, how work intensive, how expensive, and why it doesn’t work at scale, it doesn’t solve the problem,” she concluded, starkly aware of the fact that less than 10 percent of the world’s plastic gets recycled. “All these materials end up somewhere, especially in the ocean,” she states from Unplastify’s coworking space in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Besada saw the consequences firsthand. In 2018, she sailed across the Atlantic from New York to Gibraltar on a six-month journey, taking water samples along the way. The test results were devastating: “Even in the most remote corners, every single sample we took contained plastic.” The answer, she concluded, was “to tackle the problem upstream, at the source.” Credit: PeopleImages / Shutterstock In Chile, students have designed a biodegradable alternative to plastic glitter. In Columbia, students have collaborated with grocers and butchers to replace plastic wrap with banana leaves. Together with architect Rocío González, she founded Unplastify that same year, pursuing the mission to find solutions while working with the generation that bears the brunt of the plastic crisis: young people. Without action, global plastic production is expected to more than double from 130 million to 280 million metric tons over the next 15 years, according to research by The Pew Charitable Trusts . An industrial designer by training, Besada views plastic pollution as a design problem. “Let’s look at the big picture and see where we can intervene in order to change the dynamics of the system,” she says. During the Unplastify challenges to date, 43 percent of the participants have focused on alternative materials or products, for instance biodegradable glitter, beeswax instead of paper wrap and plastic-free phone cases. Thirty-eight percent have initiated awareness campaigns, which might include organizing beach cleanups. Fourteen percent have come up with entrepreneurial projects. A group in Chile, for instance, worked with local stores to sell olive oil in bulk instead of smaller containers. “They found a supplier, designed a huge container and a very nice oil dispenser, and they started testing in different stores, eventually starting a business,” Besada says.   Five percent of the students have engaged with policy aspects, aiming to change regulation, for example working with superiors to install water refilling stations instead of having single-use water bottles for sale.  Besada admits that the majority of young people are initially unaware of the plastic problem or don’t care about it. “What gets them engaged is the process of what they can do,” she says. “They engage with other students, other schools, other countries, other cultures, other languages.” The Unplastify Challenge award values not only impact, communication and creativity, but also collaboration. That’s why Besada pushes back when students initially propose an obvious substitution. “They would say, ‘Let’s replace plastic cups with paper cups,’” she explains. “I’m like, ‘Okay, that’s not a solution. That’s another single-use product.’” Instead, students have to ask a harder question: How do you get an entire classroom, school or neighborhood to accept alternatives? Credit: monticello / Shutterstock “Let’s look at the big picture and see where we can intervene.” –Augustina Besada That may mean designing reusable containers, persuading a cafeteria manager, finding suppliers or presenting a budget to the school administration. “You need to argue,” Besada says. “They have to prepare for that meeting.”  Some students who have taken the challenge discover a pathway towards a career; several chose to study political or environmental science to continue their fight for a plastic-free future. However, Besada is convinced that the problem cannot be solved on an individual level alone. Unplastify also works with companies and governments, supporting regulations at municipal and national levels, including negotiations around the United Nations Plastics Treaty , an international effort to end plastic pollution. Take Argentina’s largest airport operator, which manages 24 airports. Unplastify talked with 75 stakeholders, including retailers, airlines, lounges and food operators. Over three years, the operator reduced its plastic footprint by 28 percent, according to Besada. She explains that she uses a similar strategy as she does with the teenagers: She asks the business partners to identify the greatest plastic and water challenges, and encourages them to come up with solutions themselves.  Her broader goal comes down to questioning the idea that plastic is inherently cheap. “Cheap for whom?” she asks. The costs of plastic are often hidden — in waste management, environmental damage and health risks, among other impacts. Conventional calculations don’t necessarily capture all of them. Unplastify’s strategy is deliberately pragmatic: Identify where plastic and water are being used unnecessarily, determine what can realistically change, measure the results and build from there. Wait, you're not a member yet? Join the Reasons to be Cheerful community by supporting our nonprofit publication and giving what you can. Join Cancel anytime At the airports, for example, Unplastify found that replacing every plastic coffee cup with a paper one would cost more. But realizing that half the patrons drink their coffee in place, one part of the solution was to encourage customers to choose reusable cups, which reduces plastic and saves the operator money.  Besada’s larger prescription has three parts: Don’t treat recycling as the answer; take ownership rather than waiting for governments or corporations; and think systemically — change the surrounding system so that better choices become easier for everyone. In her own life, she started with eliminating plastic bottles, then moved on to clothing, and is currently searching for a plastic-free kettle. “Go one by one,” she says. “One plastic at a time.”  Asked where she hopes Unplastify will be in 10 or 20 years, she doesn’t describe a larger organization, more schools or a bigger budget. “Hopefully, we don’t exist anymore,” she says. “Because we solve the problem.” The post Teenagers Worldwide Are Tackling the Plastics Crisis appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful .