#plasticfreechristmas2024
The objective of this competition is to encourage families, colleagues, schools, colleges or Universities, public and private organisations, and businesses to use plastic free Christmas decorations and exchange plastic-free gifts.
Christmas involves exchange of gifts and use of festive decorations. An estimated 80-90% of those are either made of plastic or has a major component made of some form of plastic. A fair majority of these decorations and gifts make their way to the environment within weeks or months.
When we throw away plastic items they break down into tiny bits and particles of plastic, called ‘microplastics’ over a period of time, acted upon by the elements. Microplastics from the environment get into our food, air and water, harming us, the marine creatures and other animals. Microplastics are likely to cause diseases in human beings and are therefore harmful to our health. Recycling plastic is not the solution to this problem and just allows more plastic to be produced. If not all, most of the plastic made is not recycled and ends up in land fills and oceans or is burnt to produce harmful gases.
FIND OUT WHY plastic pollution is one of the biggest contributor to global warming, and hence climate change.
Everyone under 18 should seek the permission of their parents/guardians to participate in the competition.
FIRST….
With ‘plastic’ now omnipresent, the first step would be to find out what you plan to purchase or use has no plastic components in it- Furnishings, clothes, shoes, decorations, toys or even pet products.
This would take a little bit of researching on the internet as ‘plastic materials’ are know by many names that may not even sound like they are plastic!
Some ideas to explore are below;
- Raise money for a charity instead of spending on gifts
- Rent a gift
- Purchase pre-loved gifts
- Gift an experience (low carbon or no-carbon)
- Make homemade gift wrap
- Make Christmas cards
- Gift memberships of activities
- Re-gift
- Decorate Christmas tree with natural objects or quirky things that you may already have such as old toys, edible decorations, etc.
- Make Christmas gifts (if you can)
- Use solar lights
THEN…..
Fill in the form on this page with your details, photos, videos, messages. Also, share your photos and videos on Instagram and COLLBORATE with us (@centreforbigsynergy) to share it on our wall. Feel free to tag us on FB and X as well if you’d like to share your plastic free Christmas there.
Multiple prizes will be offered for individuals, families and organisations;
- The best initiatives (overall)
- The most shared initiatives
- The most liked initiatives
- The most innovative ideas
You can be just one person (child/adult), a family, colleagues, a class/year (school/college or University) or an entire organisation.
- Plastic-free Christmas Champion Award; a United Nations Sustainable Development Goals achievement
- Interviews and broadcast: Featured on national and local press and media, our website and social media accounts.
- UN presence: Winning ideas, photos, and videos will be communicated to the UNDP and UN DESA.
- We must receive entries for the competition by midnight, 3 Jan 2025.
- Please don’t post your photos or letters to us, we’re only accepting entries via the online form and we’ll be unable to accept any materials sent in by post.
- By participating in the competition you give Centre for Big Synergy (CBS) and its affiliates the permission to publish photos and videos submitted alongside the details of the submitter to publicise the competition for the current/future editions
- When taking a photo of your decorations and gifts please make sure you use natural lighting wherever possible. Dark or unnatural light can result in distorted image colour/ appearance.
- We aim to inform all winners within 28 days of the closing date.
- All entrants under 18 years of age should ask permission from a parent or guardian before entering.
- CBS reserves the right to cancel the competition at any time, if deemed necessary or if circumstances arise outside of our control.
Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy apply.
If you do not have an Instagram account or are unsure how to add us as a collaborator, you can also email photos to competitions(at)thebigsynergy.org. Ideally please only send us links of these saved on a cloud like google drive, one drive etc., so that we can download these and share it on our Instagram.
However, entries will not be considered complete without the form above. So, please fill in the form and email photos or video links with your name and other details. Please mention ‘Plastic-free Xmas’ in the subject. By emailing entries to this email, you would be agreeing to the terms of the competition and the website terms and privacy policy.
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