Take Me Outside Week eCards

This Earth Month, there are many reasons for advocating for plastic waste reduction. The Earth Day theme this year is Planet vs Plastics.

Using eCards, we invite you to share your message about why plastic waste reduction is important to you. We'll share your message with your chosen decision-maker(s) and publish it on our digital gallery wall (if that's okay with you). We're excited to showcase your perspective and involvement in reducing waste in our world!

Share your call-to-action, learning, or experience in the form below to create your own eCard.

eCards are digital messages! We post these on our website and email them to decision makers, on behalf of youth.

eCard content represents student work. It shares their opinions, perspectives, and reflects the research they conducted when it was created. We hope these eCards encourage action and reflection about environmental issues.

Want to see what other youth have already done? Check out our eCards Gallery Wall here or check out the example eCard below:

We encourage people to share messages, images, and art that reflects their thoughts, understanding, and experience in relation to reducing waste and achieving zero waste communities.

Our partners at the Centre for Global Education are hosting an engaging workshop on April 3rd for Zero Waste Day. Consider signing up HERE for inspiration!

We also have some helpful resources that can give you the low-down on plastic waste in our world. Check them out HERE.

Some ideas for your eCard include advocating for your cafeteria to use reusable dishes instead of single use plastics, advocating for fast food restaurants to move towards reusable containers, advocating for your school to hold a clothing or toy swap, advocating for your school to hold a repair workshop to repair electronics (with proper supervision) or sewing old clothes instead of buying new ones. Check out these examples of how some companies are reducing waste here!

Interested in sending an eCard about a different topic? Check out our regular eCards page here.

We value and respect student voices at GreenLearning. The views of these eCards are not the opinions of GreenLearning or its affiliates.

Before you submit your eCard, you'll have the opportunity to let us know if you're ok with us posting your eCard on our website gallery wall. Anyone that visits our website will be able to look at the posted eCards. We would love to share your eCard with the world, but it's ok if you want to keep it more private.

You'll also be able to choose someone you want to send your eCard to. We recommend you send it to a decision-maker that you think can help make a difference. A local politician, school trustee, community member, or business leader might be a good choice! You are welcome to send your eCard to multiple people, just let us know.

Earth Day has some great factsheets about plastic waste. Here are just a few statistics:
1. It is estimated that 75 to 199 million tons of plastic are currently in the ocean (UN Environment Programme, 2021).
2. One million plastic bottles are purchased every minute worldwide, while up to five trillion plastic bags are used a year (UN Environment Programme, 2021)
3. Each year, the average American ingests more than 70,000 microplastics in their drinking water supply.(American Chemical Society, 2019)

A great way to reduce plastic waste is by moving towards a circular economy. Check out our many resources on circular economy for plastic waste with our Eco 360 program.

Bonus, after you submit your plastic waste eCard consider taking part in our Eco 360 classroom challenge by creating an innovation/invention idea for plastic waste.

GreenLearning creates free education programs about energy, climate change and green economy that engage and empower students to create positive change.