Erin O’Connor
Erin O’Connor has teamed up with SodaStream to launch 'A World Without Bottles', a campaign to raise awareness of plastic bottle waste and its devastating effects on the environment.
Erin’s involvement follows new research out today that reveals a shocking 63% of British adults do not know how the 13.1 billion plastic bottles - over 500 per household - used annually by UK households could damage the environment
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What’s more, Brits hugely underestimate the amount of bottle waste they generate; with 42% of adults believing they use between 1-5 bottles a week in their household when the actual figure is double that.
Known for her green credentials as much as her famous walk, Erin O’Connor is spearheading a new drive to educate consumers on the benefits of ‘precycling’, the practice of trying to reduce waste before recycling is necessary in the first place as according to Sodastream’s research 43% of consumers recycle less than half of their plastic bottle waste.
Shattering the illusion that children are more eco-aware then adults, the research also shows that a near identical 61% of children are also in the dark about the specific effects of plastic bottle overuse on the environment.
Despite this, 67% adults still assume that their kids are more aware of the environmental issues around bottle overuse than they were at their age.
Hope may be on the horizon as the research shows the willingness to go green: 50 per cent of children say they actively encourage their parents to be more environmentally-friendly and 69% of children say they would use less plastic bottles if their parents did.
Erin comments: "We take plastic bottles for granted in our everyday lives but it’s easy to forget that plastic bottle overuse and wastage can clog up our landfill sites, seap toxic chemicals into the ground and take thousands of years to decompose.
"By precycling you can help tackle the problem by avoiding plastic in the first place. Sodastream is one way to help reduce plastic bottle waste in our everyday lives."