Meet Our Leads: Danielle From Plastic Free Broughty Ferry

‘From small beginnings come great things’ is a well-known and often used proverb. In the case of the Plastic Free Broughty Ferry in Scotland, this is absolutely the case.

Danielle signed up her community to the Plastic Free Communities campaign in June 2019, and since then the local movement has continued to grow. Danielle, known to her team as Dee, set about creating a local movement, working together to drive plastic reduction in Broughty Ferry through the SAS Plastic Free Communities five step toolkit. Her team started connecting with local businesses, their local council, and a wide range of Community Allies to help spread the message, including local schools, community groups and organisations. And in April year, they achieved the SAS Plastic Free Communities award!

Community lead Dee first discovered Plastic Free Communities through word of mouth. After watching David Attenborough’s Blue Planet 2 which highlighted the plastic pollution crisis, Dee was ignited to do something about it. She didn’t want to just sit back and ignore the problem, so she acted by signing up to lead her community.

Starting out didn’t come without its challenges. Dee’s plastic free movement began as a small group initially, with herself and family helping out on their first community clean events. However, Dee stayed focused knowing that every little bit of action makes a difference. Over the next year, local interest in Dee’s campaign grew considerably, and her beach cleans were now attracting over 80 volunteers.

One part of the five-step toolkit that our communities work on is to ask their local council to pass a Plastic Free Motion:

• To support local plastic free initiatives
• To act by example and work towards removing single-use plastic themselves,
• To agree to place a member of their council on the local Plastic Free Community steering group.

Dee approached this part of the award by first asking a local councillor to join their steering group meetings. Once they’d built a trusted relationship together over time Dee was then able to encourage the council to resolve the Plastic Free Motion at one of their full council meetings.

Dee said: “Having a councillor on our steering group is a great way to set the ball rolling for a Plastic Free Council Motion. It’s not easy, and it takes time, but we were consistent and persistent, and we just kept asking.”

Dee strengthened her community network by inspiring local, independent businesses to sign up to the SAS Plastic Free Champion award. The award allows a business to start a journey of single-use plastic reduction. Dee knew businesses would be busy with their time, so she focused on explaining the award process to them, the aims, the incentives for the business, and once they realised how simple it was, she found more and more began signing up.

Broughty Ferry organised some epic local events that also contributed to their award. These events have given Dee an opportunity to connect with her local community. She has loved all the events she has been a part of, although her favourite may be their Gala Day event, where they get to interact with the whole community. The event helps them spread the word about what caring for the environment can do and why it’s important, and they have lots of fun at the same time.

Since achieving their award, Broughty Ferry have also recently hosted a community hustings event for the SAS Scottish Election Tour. Dee saw it as a great opportunity for the local community to speak directly with politicians about the environment and plastic pollution. One of their favourite moments was seeing everyone in one place discussing what they can do to change the way the government tackles these issues.

“Whether it is a beach clean-up or another event, we get to connect with the local community, and it is lovely to see so many people with the same mindset of caring for the environment.”

Through their journey to achieving the award, Dee has learnt that she lives in an amazing community made up of many amazing individuals, businesses, Community Allies and schools, who care about making a positive difference for their environment and wildlife as much as she does. It has really brought a sense of community and reinforced the idea that every action, big or small, makes a difference.

Dee explains that even on the challenging days when you don’t think you are making headway, stick with it. Changing the way we think about single-use plastic takes time, but as Dee found, it can quickly build momentum, encouraging more and more people to get involved.

The award is just the start the start for Plastic Free Broughty Ferry, as they lead their community to break free from throwaway plastic, turning the tide and helping change the system that produces it.

Want to join Dee in the UKs biggest Plastic Free Movement? Here’s How 👇

• Find out more about how you can lead your community to take action on plastic locally.
• Sign up your business to become a Plastic Free Champion >> https://plasticfree.org.uk/get-involved/business/
• Find your local community >> https://plasticfree.org.uk/get-involved/find-your-community/
• Get an Individual Action Plan and find out little changes can make a big difference >> https://plasticfree.org.uk/get-involved/individuals/