A 10-YEAR-OLD who started a petition to “save polar bears” after being told her family couldn’t have a reusable recycling bag has taken her campaign to her local council.
Ffion Maidment Cárdenas collected enough signatures on her petition, which called for Monmouthshire County Council to stop using single-use plastic bags for household recycling, for it to be considered for action by the council.
As a result the Osbaston Church in Wales School pupil was invited to present her petition to the council’s place scrutiny committee when it met last week at County Hall in Usk.
At the meeting Ffion, who was supported by her classmate Charlotte Swartz, read from her petition to the committee and distributed badges in support of her campaign to the councillors.
She told the committee: “I have created a petition for the polar bears because they are suffering of a crime they haven’t committed.”
The youngster said single use plastic is contributing to climate change through their production and that carbon captured in them is eventually released into the atmosphere as plastic bags cannot be recycled.
“That creates a thick, warm blanket that wraps around the earth and that is what has been destroying polar bears’ homes and the ice and I want to change that because the polar bears deserve a better and brighter future because, like I said, the polar bears are suffering of a crime they haven’t committed.”
Ffion said she had initially asked some classmates for their support “but they weren’t keen, and said no.”
However older brother Rhodri, who is in year six at the school near Monmouth, stepped in and after discussing the issue with his class teacher collected 31 signatures, which is six more than the minimum required for any petition to be considered by the county council.
Mum Jenny Cárdenas De Maidment, who accompanied the girls to County Hall, said it was an “amazing, and very, very proud moment”.
She said Ffion had been inspired to act after the learning the council was distributing reusable, hessian recycling bags in some parts of the county.
Mrs Cárdenas De Maidment said: “Months ago we asked the council for some reusable bags for our recycling. They replied saying that the scheme was a trial and that we were not allowed to have these bags as it was only rolled out in some parts of Monmouth. She was very frustrated about this and decided to take action because for her it doesn’t make sense to recycle in single use plastic bags.”
Committee chair Cllr Lisa Dymock said the council is “working very hard” to be plastic-free and that 10,000 households are already using the hessian bags which will be rolled out to a further 5,000 in the coming months and across the whole of Monmouthshire by the end of the year.
The petition, which stated “we need to save the polar bears and other endangered species” and that “changing our recycling bags will change a lot for at least a couple of polar bears” asked the council to “please stop using single-use plastic bags for recyling.”
At the meeting cabinet member for the environment Cllr Catrin Maby responded to Ffion and Charlotte and thanked them for bringing the petition forward and said: “I’m really pleased you are concerned about this issue and we will take it very seriously indeed.”
In 2018 the council pledged to work towards becoming a “plastic free” county, in line with the Plastic Free Coastline campaign run by Surfers Against Sewage.
As part of the pledge it resolved to review its own use of single-use plastics and take steps to identify unnecessary plastic use and reduce it and support community action and work with schools and businesses to help reduce plastic use.
