Anna: Solving plastic pollution, you are not alone

Plastic pollution is a key issue of sustainability that has been discussed for many years. It is hard to solve, and it is a long-term issue. Despite, still have many people who are working on it.

 

Anna is a famous YouTuber with 1 million Subscribers and working on plastic pollution issue. She shares recycling and reuse ideas on YouTube and aiming to raise public environmental awareness. She lives in Melbourne.

 

When Anna was sixteen years old, she went to Bali with her family. They went to the East Coast of Bali for scuba diving. When she arrived at the coast, she saw plenty of plastic in the ocean. She realised that plastic pollution is horrible, it is destroying the beauty of the ocean. Anna loves scuba diving; she afraid it would ruin the ocean and she could no longer continue this hobby in the future. She scared Australia will become the next Bali; therefore, she started to analyse and study the effects and solutions to plastic pollution.

 

Today, she manages her YouTube channel and has more than 1 million subscribers. She uploaded more than 250 videos in the last two years, most of the videos are tutorials on how to recycle and upcycle, to create new daily necessities. Her videos are creative and practical, which excites her audience to follow suit. Understand how Anna surmounted the difficulties of starting her YouTube channel and the reasons for becoming a YouTuber.

 

Life turning point

After she graduated from university, she worked at Surfrider Foundation Australia which is a non-profit sea-roots organisation. She hoped to use her effort to lessen the impact of plastic pollution. However, she found Australian are not aware of the issue. Australian use 130 kg of plastic every year and have 130,000 tonnes of plastic went into the ocean (according to WWF).

Anna is a creative person; she loves to recycle and create products by hands. Her friend, Elsa, recommended her to teach children to handmade products with recycling materials. Anna thought teaching online through YouTube may be more effective in connecting to more people and spreading the message. Hence, she set up her YouTube channel and gained attention and recognition for the last two years.

Anna treats her channel as a hobby. She is working and doing her channel at the same time. She found filming video is not an easy job. Not only does she need to design content, prepare materials, but also find ways to engage her audience and learn how to edit videos. She started to learn the basics of videography while she was still working (full time) at that moment. She found it was hard to manage her time and constantly felt exhausted.

When she thought of giving up the channel, she read many comments from viewers. Most of them left very supportive comments and encouragements, such as “I love your videos. I started to recycle, and I created my own products. Please continue, I will support you.”. When she read these comments, she decided to keep on creating content. Gradually, she realised the importance of her work, which are useful and meaningful to her subscribers.

 

“Their supports are my motivating me. When the subscribers and viewers increase, I feel like I am helping the environment.”

 

Protect the environment

Out of the many pollution topics, her focus is on plastic pollution. Plastic can take up to 1,000 years to decompose in the landfill. There is 8 million pieces of plastic pollution are going into the ocean every day (according to IUCN). She said plastic pollution is hard to stop; however, what we can do is to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Apart from uploading recycling and upcycling videos, she also keeps track of and analyses the water pollution situation. She aimed to raise public awareness and monitor the companies to deal with their plastic legally and correctly.

Marine species that swallow or entangle plastic fragments can cause serious injury and death. Plastic pollution is threatening food quality and safety; it affects human health and world sustainability. It contributed to climate change. Plastic pollution is affecting the water quality, destroying the habitat, and ruining our lives. That’s why we should aware of this issue, it is not sustainable to our lives and environment.

 

“That’s what I can do. I am trying my best to raise people’s environmental consciousness. I cannot fix it on my own, but we can solve it together. We always have more power than we think.”

 

Anna found that most of her subscribers are parents. They love to watch videos that use natural material instead of chemical products. Her top viewed video is “how to clean greasy out of clothing by 10 fruits”. Parents are afraid of the potentially harmful chemicals can bring about to their children. Parents also like to watch how to create children’s toys by used plastic or paper, which allows them to participate in handicraft sessions with their children. Some parents told Anna they followed her videos and started to teach their children about recycling.

 

“I believed that if every child understands the impact of plastic pollution, it could be solved. Child creates the future.”

 

Since Anna is sharing environmental knowledge, she wanted to expand her scope of audience. Anna is willing to approach young adults or and teenagers; she started to choose different topics. She created videos that teach the decorating of phone cases with reusable materials and handmade accessories with plastics and cans. However, those videos only attracted teenagers and young adults. Anna had to either decide which group she would like to have as her main audience or choose some topics that are suitable for both of them.

Anna decided to contain both groups of subscribers by creating a variety of contents. She uploads parents’ type of videos on Monday and Saturday; young adults’ videos on Wednesday and Sunday. Anna said every time she writes the scripts and edits the videos, she has to generate different tones and voices. During young adults’ video, her tone, voice, and content are more mature. In the other hand, the videos are clear and easy to understand. Many parents are watching with their children; therefore, the pace is slow and with interesting content as children are easily distracted. In both types of videos, the ingredients and steps are concise.

 

“My crafts are easy to make. I hope everyone can follow my videos to start to recycle and reduce.”

 

Sustainability issues are long-term issues, the main cause is the continuous development of the world. Anna said people do not understand their power in damaging and saving the environment.

 

“Environment is relating to our future; we should protect our planet for a better prospect. It is our responsibility to take care of our Earth. It is never too late to take your first step; our planet needs us.”

 

The main idea that Anna wanted to share is never thought you are alone. She developed this channel is also wanted to tell the world that still has many people who are working on this issue. Never give up, and help the world be more sustainable.

 

Let’s check out Anna’s channel on YouTube. The channel is named “Anna crafts the Earth”.

 

Never too late to start!