Giving Compass' Take:

• Greenpeace wants to see plastic pollution taught in Philippine schools to encourage students to act on the country’s waste crisis by using a children's book about ocean plastic.

• How can funders help to expand access to information and resources for parents and teachers? 

• Learn more about teaching children about climate change. 

Mad and sad.

This is how nine-year-old Maria felt after listening to a reading of a new picture book on plastic pollution in the Philippines in February.

At the event, hosted by San Lorenzo Ruiz Senior Highschool in Pasig City and attended by about three dozen school children, the Philippine student said she did not like seeing wildlife affected by dumped plastics. She pledged to tell her friends not to use single-use materials anymore, and from then on bring reusable water bottles and food containers to school to help combat the country’s waste problem.

Produced by environmental group Greenpeace, the new book—titled Bayan ng Basura, or Basuratown, which refers to the fictional town where the story takes place—was designed to help children understand and act on the devastating impacts of throwaway items on marine life and local communities, and is part of the green group’s efforts to bring the story of plastics into Philippine classrooms.

Written by Philippine writer Augie Rivera and illustrated by artist Jill Arteche, the book depicts the story of a sea turtle that meets sea creatures tormented by plastic items. Characters include a whale that has ingested shampoo sachets, an octopus entangled in ropes, and a prawn living inside a plastic bottle.

Neck-deep in a waste crisis, the Philippines is in dire need of a change in consumer behaviour to assert pressure on plastic-using consumer goods companies. Raising children’s awareness of the country’s plastic plight, Greenpeace believes, would be an effective means of doing so.

“Using the book as an entry point, we also want to reach out to the parents and the teachers and call on them to support movements against the use of single-use plastic,” Greenpeace campaigner Virginia Benosa-Llorin told Eco-Business.

Read the full article about plastic pollution in the Philippines by Tim Daubach at Eco-Business.