The plastic attack movement was born in the United Kingdom. This citizens’ initiative aims to raise consumer awareness against overpackaging and to change the way packaging is produced by manufacturers. Surfrider Europe interviewed Fanny Vismara, one of the leaders representing this movement in France.
Technically, what is a ‘plastic attack‘?
Plastic attacks are collective and peaceful actions carried out in supermarkets. The aim of our movement is to raise awareness and demonstrate the uselessness of overpackaging and single-use plastics. We try to work with all the players: citizens, consumers, distributors, manufacturers and governments.
Our actions are simple and clear: everyone goes to the supermarket and uses reusable packaging while grocery shopping. After going to the cash register, all unnecessary packaging is removed and left to the distributors. We only take the essentials home in jars or cloth bags. The atmosphere is friendly: we explain our actions to the customers and have signs and posters with positive and humorous slogans. The idea is not to denounce or blame, but instead to educate people.
What was the primary motivation for this project? What pushed you to take action?
In the last 10 years, plastic production has increased by 40% in France and our objective is to halt and reverse this trend. In France, 60% of food purchases are made in supermarkets. We wanted to show that each consumer has the power to choose to either purchase or boycott plastic.
With plastic attacks, we seek to change practices on each level of the food production and distribution industry. We observed that overpackaging is more prevalent in large, dehumanized supermarket chains so we wanted to take action notably in these businesses because of their global volume and absurdity of wasteful packaging. The pollution that these common products generate on the environment and oceans is devasting.
What was the highlight of your experience?
Following our latest action in June, Carrefour invited us for a formal meeting. Our group explained our mission to eliminate or replace plastic packaging (polystyrene trays, plastic packaging for organic products, etc.) with recyclable packaging by 2020. (See details here.) This was an important first step and we will continue our actions targeting the largest distributors (Super U, Leclerc, Auchan… etc.) until that they commit themselves to finding responsible solutions. We are happy to represent consumers in this desire for change, and wish to mobilize as many brands as possible.
After our actions in June, our movement quickly gained momentum and we received requests from many media and even the Ministry of Ecology. We are thinking of creating an international association to better federate the movement.
Do you have a message to convey? Another project in mind?
Join the movement! (laughs) Our next big action will be on September 15th: collectives from all over the world will take part to the ‘World Plastic Attack Day’. It’s time for action! On an individual level, everyone can act in their local supermarket, whether they are in a city or in the country.
Looking ahead, one of our future projects would be to work with supermarkets to systematically unpack deliveries at the supermarket. The objective would be to financially impact distributors and suppliers using wasteful packaging and force them to react. The Law ‘Grenelle 2′ already forces supermarkets over 2500 square meters to make sorting bins available to consumers. It is up to the distributor to pay a tax for the collection of waste left in the supermarket: imposing an additional cost and holding suppliers accountable. By systematizing this process and by asking supermarkets to add “unpacking” tables, we would like to have a direct impact on the industry chain and eventually put an end to overpackaging.
In its campaigns against plastic pollution (Reset Your Habits and Ban the Bag), Surfrider emphasizes the need to involve every level of society in the circular economy, from citizens to decision-makers to companies.
