Measuring the Impact of the Plastic Free Movement

Plastic Free Communities is a nationwide people-powered movement dedicated to breaking free from single-use plastic and stopping its production for good. Collectively their action on the ground is triggering systemic change at the top. The movement drives long term plastic reduction by working with councils, individuals, businesses and organisations to reduce single-use plastic usage.

It’s absolutely vital that we record and share the powerful impact of this growing, community-led movement.

Why is it important to know the impact our movement is having?

Sharing the impact of the movement at both a national and local level can be used to drive national system change. Plastic Free Communities has become the UK’s largest community-led campaign fighting single-use plastic. It unites thousands of people in urban, rural and coastal locations nationwide. Understanding its impact helps to strengthen and deepen on the ground action across the UK.

Plastic Free Communities are instrumental in exposing the scale of the plastic problem, through collaborative research and citizen science. Through their work on Surfers Against Sewage campaigns such as the Million Mile Clean, they have helped record vital data to hold polluters accountable. Understanding this impacts helps show how communities can provide crucial evidence to drive change.

By sharing our impact as a national movement, this helps inspire more people to join the movement, and means we can celebrate our incredible communities and our national wins together.

How do we know the national impact of Plastic Free Communities?

Plastic Free Communities work on the five-step toolkit to achieve plastic free status. The toolkit provides guidance for each step of the journey towards achieving Plastic Free Community Status, and forms the foundations on which our communities can build sustainable, long-term plastic reduction where they live.

But, how do we know what hundreds of communities are up to across the UK?!

The Online Dashboard of course.

The dashboard is THE go-to place for resources, guidance and updates for all our Plastic Free Communities, and where they can tell us everything they are doing on the ground. When our communities tell us about their epic local action; working with their local councils, businesses, community allies, and running events, we can pull it all together to see who the campaign has reached, how they are tackling single-use plastic, and most importantly how we can support our communities.

Through the Plastic Free Community Dashboard, we can assess the impact of our local community campaigns, and build an accurate, clearer picture of the success of the national movement.

Sharing & Celebrating Local Impact

Not only can we bring together data from hundreds of communities on the ground into a national picture, but we can also report back to the communities, giving them their own local reports to share far and wide.

By sharing their local impact, they can celebrate their local communities and the local movement they have built together. While knowing that every upload, and every action contributes to the UK’s largest movement on single-use plastic.

Together, every upload, every action and every local win adds up to something huge. By sharing and celebrating this impact, we can show the true power of Plastic Free Communities and keep building the momentum needed to break free from single-use plastic, for good.

Want to help support the UKs biggest Plastic Free Movement?

Find your local community >> https://plasticfree.org.uk/get-involved/find-your-community/

Sign up your business to become a Plastic Free Champion >> https://plasticfree.org.uk/get-involved/business/

Get an action plan >> https://plasticfree.org.uk/get-involved/individuals/