Can Grassroots Community Action Make a Difference? We Think so.

On one summer afternoon, a group of complete strangers united on a beach in Barcelona to take action for the environment, the community, and themselves. With trash bags in their hands, they searched for plastic, paper, litter hiding between rocks under grains of sand. In only one hour, they collected 94,1kg of waste.

Photography by Marcelina Kieskiewicz Dvorak, words by Dörte de Jesus

What they found: fireworks, yogurt cups, cans, McDonald’s dishes, a car tire, a fire extinguisher, paint buckets, fishing strings, candy wrappers, mobile phones, water bottles, cigarettes, and more. The campaign was coordinated by Mar and Guille of the Barcelona-based Plastic Collectors Association, who organise regular beach clean-ups.

Can local, grassroots actions make a difference? We think so. They may be small in scale but show us how empowering it is to come together and connect around a common goal. They help us train our collective muscle: By moving into action within a community of kindred spirits, we experience that we can create change when we work together. And they open up the opportunity for us to create thriving local hubs of human and environmental well-being. In the following story and interview, Mar and Guille share their experiences with us. And if you’d like to get into the action yourself, we’ve got some inspiration for you. Local Futures put together the Localisation Action Guide, filled with tools and resources to build flourishing local communities of any kind.

What prompted you to start Plastic Collectors? Was there a specific experience or realization that set the project in motion?

We started Plastic Collectors because we were appalled by the overall destruction that our planet is facing. One day, after a winter storm, we went to the beach next to my house and we couldn't believe our eyes – everywhere was full of enormous gasoline cans, plastic bottles, pyrex pans, small plastic pieces, and microplastics. We thought that we were also responsible for what is happening and decided to start Plastic Collectors, an association through which we could help our planet as well as people at risk of social exclusion at the same time. 

When I saw the images of your beach clean-ups, a quote by author Robin Wall Kimmerer came into my mind: “Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.” How do you experience the clean-ups? How have they influenced you and your relationship with your natural surroundings?

Since we started with the association, I have read so many books about the health of our planet, and about how to reverse this situation, what is in our hands... And after reading all this information, naturally, I feel much closer to our natural environment. Somehow, I have learned that we are destroying everything that gives us life and that this is the message we have to internalize. Who wants to destroy a beautiful ecosystem that is perfect and interconnected so that our planet works?

I have learned how to take care of the sea and the forest as if they were myself. We need to have much more empathy with our natural surroundings and realize that if our planet is not healthy, neither are we.

How would you say the other participants, the volunteers, and the collectors, experience these days of communal action? Would you say that there’s an increased sense of community after some hours of work? Is there anything that has moved you?

I can assure you that when you come to one of our clean-ups, you will never see your garbage in the same way again. There was one day on which we picked up more than 100 kg of disposable wipes in less than one hour. All of us who took part in that clean-up made the promise that we would never use them again! When you are collecting waste, you find so many things that are in common use, that could have been used in your house. It makes you rethink your way of consuming. And yes! Clean-ups are very uniting since we are all working for the same cause and something that worries all of us, and together we are working on a solution for it. When we finish a clean-up, it is such a satisfaction to see that everything that we have collected is no longer going to end up in the sea. 

How can people join you? And do you have any advice for people who might feel inspired to start a similar initiative in another place? 

If anyone wants to come to our clean-ups, they can register themselves on our website. Everyone is welcome, and we would like to welcome more and more volunteers every time. 

Our advice to someone who wants to start a clean-up association is to do it! Our planet needs us to get into action more than ever. So even if you just pick 5kg of trash, it will be more than GREAT! We hope one day our association will not be necessary. But until then, we need people who want to help fix things. The more, the better!

For more information visit:
www.plasticcollectors.org and @plasticcollectors