Pupils at Beech Hill Community Primary School, Wigan, have been finding out how to reduce, reuse and recycle plastics within their community as they participated in ‘The Big Plastic Count’ to find out the plastic footprint of their homes and were concerned about the amount of waste that ends up in landfill and in oceans.



As a result of their work, some children were invited to a Youth Empowerment Day in Westminster led by Greenpeace, where they learned about the United Nation's drive to protect the environment, with175 nations agreeing to develop a legally binding agreement on plastic pollution policy.  This would be a major step towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions from plastic production, use and disposal.  The children spent the afternoon discussing environmental impact issue with MPs and asking the UK government to sign up to the Global Plastic Treaty by the end of the year.