When Fiona Hornstein’s children asked her where disposed plastic waste ended up, the mother-of-two stopped in her tracks. She had no answer to give them. So she got to the bottom of the matter.
For the past year, she has been working nonstop to lead a rapidly growing sustainability network, Action Planet.
The network connect experts and promotes empowering initiatives on sustainability, from an information portal to focus groups and think tanks bringing together NGOs, activists and government.
Mr Hornstein wasn’t born into green thinking, but she nonetheless had it close at heart.
“When my kids and I wanted to find out more about the waste situation here I contacted WasteServ, who were incredibly helpful. They came to my children’s school to give an informative talk and organised a visit to the recycling plant,” she said.
READ: Malta's landfill will be full in just two years' time
WasteServ are very dedicated to educate people and emphasise ‘the three Rs’, which stand for reduce, reuse and recycle.
Environmental concerns are everywhere you look, but Ms Hornstein insists on keeping a positive outlook.
“Yes, it is true, there are huge floating garbage patches in the world’s oceans, the landfill in Malta is nearly full, there are too many cars on the road and the population keeps increasing. However, continuing to focus on these facts without offering solutions just makes people feel despair and negativity,” she said.
“We live in a time of convenience - drinking water out of single use plastic bottles, grabbing a take-away coffee instead of sitting in a cafe to drink, throwing out something that is broken rather than spending the time to repair it. We need to ask ourselves the important question: is this behaviour sustainable?” Ms Hornstein said.
READ: Volunteers lift 140kg of waste from Malta's sea floor
Society is becoming more technology-focused, more urbanised and as a result more disconnected from nature. We need to ask ourselves whether this is sustainable, and what can we do about it?
According to WasteServ, source-segregated recycling in Malta has increased dramatically from 560 tonnes per year in 2002 to more than 19,735 tonnes per year in 2013 (for monthly updates on source-specific data see WasteServ’s website).
Globally, people buy an estimated one million plastic bottles per minute – and just nine per cent of these are being recycled. By 2050, there will be more microplastics by weight than fish in the oceans. A recently-discovered garbage patch in the South Pacific measures 2,589,988 square kilometres, which equals 8,196 times the size of Malta.
Through Action Planet, Ms Hornstein wants to create an information portal where people can find out about various environmental initiatives happening in Malta. A collaborative initiative, led by Cane Vella of Get Trashed, takes school children on clean-ups to show them the impact that litter has on the environment.
“I don’t think we realise that plastic doesn’t decompose - it can last for anything up to 1000 years!” Ms Hornstein said.
An exhibition at St James Cavalier, running from February 16 to March 18, will display the best research projects, photographs and art installations created by school children, University of Malta and MCAST students.
Students from organisations represented by the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability and Inspire are currently creating mosaics out of recycled materials for the exhibition.
Another part of the programme is a specific Young Reporters for the Environment (YRE) project to foster environmental reporting among school children. It is led by Audrey Gauci from YRE, which is a part of Nature Trust- FEE Malta.
“It’s not always about governments or big corporations, everyone’s actions matter! This is very important for our children to understand and could inspire them as well as their parents,” Ms Hornstein stressed.
“I believe this is the time of change, and we can all do our part. My role in this is simply that of connecting people,” Ms Hornstein said.
“There are great values from older generations that we could learn from, especially when it comes to reusing and repairing things. It’s a pity we don’t acknowledge these people and their values more!”
Action Planet
Who? Fiona Hornstein.
What? Founder and Team Leader of sustainability network Action Planet, since December 2016.
Why? To Unite, Inspire, Empower and encourage Action for sustainability in Malta.
How? By uniting, educating and connecting local initiatives, experts and sponsors who share the vision, with the public.
Where? Via the informational portal actionplanet.org and an exhibition together with Spazju Kreattiv at St James Cavalier on February 16 to March 18, 2018.
For who? Everyone who is curious and wants to find solutions together for Malta’s sustainability. A chance for engaged partners to display their work and for the public to meet, get inspired by experts and exchange ideas on how to best secure Malta’s environment.
Want to help? Action Planet is a non-profit sustainability network fully dependent on external sponsorship. Supporting Action Planet can facilitate the fulfilment of a company's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) goals. If interested or wanting to find out more, send an email to info@actionplanet.org.