The "Plastic Soup Surfer"
Merijn Tinga fron the Netherlands has two passions: surfing and the environment. He has now combined both of these in an unusual environmental campaign. He is the „Plastic Soup Surfer“ who surfs the oceans on Heavy Boards of melted down plastic waste thus making people aware of the plastic pollution in our oceans.
This man has a mission. He wants to put a stop to the global pollution of the oceans with plastic waste. In doing so he employs a weapon which at first sight has nothing to do with this environmental problem. Merijn Tinga is a biologist and an extreme surfer who has already glided across the English channel on his Kite Board from the Netherlands to Great Britain. He now uses his talent for environmental protection. Wherever he appears, his Surf-Show becomes an appeal to the public to restrict their own plastic consumption. His spectators are invited to sign a resolution with which Tinga aims to force politicians in the Netherlands to forbid different forms of plastic-use. Moreover, his surfboard is made of melted plastic waste, a clear statement against the plastic waste problem in the world’s oceans.
Merijn started his campaign with a petition against disposable plastic bottles. On Valentine’s day in 2017 he submitted 60,000 signed petitions to the Dutch parliament – and then he continued to collect some more. Since the problem, according to the surfer, is just getting worse. No matter where he is on his waste plastic surfboard, he surfs through a sea of plastic bottles and plastic parts. „Plastic is a potentially highly dangerous material when it is released into the environment“, he says. „The producers should be made accountable for what their throwaway products do to Nature“. His goal: he wants to reduce the amount of plastic thrown away in the Netherlands by 90 percent within three years.
The battle against plastic split balls
Since for him and his fans the efforts undertaken by the fossil-based plastic industry are progressing much too slowly, he has now beseeched the Courts and sued the manufacturers of split balls of plastic, in which many children’s toys are packed, for damage to the environment. The almost indestructible plastic balls, which can among other things be found in chocolate eggs for children, have become a major problem for the environment apart from plastic bottles and other non-reusable plastic like carrier bags, plastic beakers as well as synthetic wipes and various hygiene products. In the Netherlands alone, 75 million of these small plastic balls are thrown away every year, many of them ending up in our rivers and oceans. „We want to have these disposable fireworks of plastic balls prohibited by the Courts in the Netherlands since this product was only developed for the purpose of being thrown away“, the committed environmental activist states. To give his claim clout, he collects photos of beaches and rivers polluted with these balls.
The Plastic-Avengers
His initiative in the Netherlands has since grown to become a national environmental movement. Just one year ago Anti-Plastic-Activists in Amsterdam joined forces at the first „Plastic Avenger“-Conference in the Netherlands, to encourage politicians to forbid disposable plastic goods globally with legal means and with pressure from the grassroots.
The activists are focusing on the next biggest opponent, apart from the drinks and chocolate egg industry: sweet manufacturers. They want to force them, to no longer pack their sweeties in disposable plastic. Merijn Tinga: „In only one minute in the Netherlands 16,000 pieces of this small plastic packaging are thrown away. Many of these tend to land unfortunately in Nature. But there are sufficient alternatives. There is no need to wrap each of the sweets in a bag in another piece of plastic“.
Especially when it comes to the packaging, plastic is not seen at first glance. And hidden microplastic is much more problematic in many everyday products, for example in the form of peeling-pearls in shower gels or fossil-based fibers in wet wipes. Carelessly thrown away wet and care wipes account for more than 8% of the waste pollution on our beaches. The paradox is: surveys show that consumers prefer to take wet wipes without fossil plastic, but in most cases the packaging does not give anything away about the basic materials it contains. However, there are some alternatives, such as the Sweeps® brand from the Netherlands with its wide range of wet wipes for all situations in life. The wet wipes from Sweeps® are currently mainly available in the Netherlands.
Naturally everyone has to do their bit for environmental protection, dispose of waste in the right way and treat the resources we have mindfully. And yet it remains to be hoped that there will be an increasing number of people who will work as passionately for the environment as Merijn Tinga, to be able to attain great success for Nature as quickly as possible.
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