Primary Earth Summit Training Day

On Saturday 17th May Fergus, Johnny and Harry travelled to Hampton Hill Junior School in London to attend the training day for the Primary Earth Summit.

This competition was opened up to 18,000 schools which equates to 9 million children and here they were with the 20 group finalists!

The day was run by ‘Wastebuster’ and a host of speakers presented their ideas and dreams about the future of plastics. Hanane Taidi explained to the boys about the importance of plastic in modern society and how Plastics Europe are pushing for a complete ban on plastics going to landfill by 2020.

Richard Thommeret from SOLVAY showed a film about the first solar aircraft that had been built without the need for fuel. ‘Solar Impulse’ hope to fly this plane around the world non-stop next year. This remarkable project would be impossible without plastic technology.

Ed Douglas Miller from ‘Remarkable Eco-Solutions’ showed the boys how you can turn plastic cups into pencils! He has recently developed the World’s longest pencil and as part of their pack for getting into the finals the boys will receive one part of this 323.51m pencil.

Jenny Griffiths from the Marine Conservation Society shared her concern about how plastic littering is killing and injuring marine life. There are now six times more plastic particles in the sea than plankton!

The boys were then given a virtual tour of what will be their journey into Parliament on the 16th June. A brief history of the place was given with the clear message – it was their place and they should not be afraid to speak in it (the group recorded a message for all of the leaders of the political parties and it was sent out that afternoon). The boys will present in Committee Room 10 in front of politicians, conservationists, biologists, event organisers, advertisers and marketing firms. This date was chosen deliberately as it is the start of ‘Recycling Week’. They will also receive a tour of this amazing building before the award ceremony in the afternoon.

After lunch there were three workshops; one where they had the opportunity to ask questions to the experts who had come to speak to them, one where the development of an eco-song was used to learn about leadership and the third was to have a presentation run through critiqued by journalists Laura Shields (BBC) and Robert Matthews (New Scientist, The Times, Daily Telegraph).

All in all it was an amazing day, now we just need to prepare for Parliament!