Return To Offender Weekend call to action
SAS’s Return To Offender Weekend calls on the public to challenge industry on the growing marine litter crisis
Surfers Against Sewage is delighted to announce the inaugural Return To Offender weekend on 24th & 25th November 2012, giving the public a fantastic opportunity to challenge businesses about the marine litter crisis. The Return To Offender initiative is an activity designed to help individuals and communities confront businesses with items of litter found on UK beaches, asking them to take specific actions including:
- Increasing anti-littering messaging on their products to better inform consumers about reuse, recycling and proper disposal.
- Reducing the amount of packaging used for their products.
- Identifying less harmful packaging options to safeguard the environment.
- Supporting environmental initiatives and community activities to protect oceans and beaches.
The activity will see SAS campaigners and supporters from Land’s End to the Orkney Islands returning to manufacturers pieces of marine litter found on tidelines nationwide asking for more to be done to protect these unique environments. It will also highlight particular sources of marine litter and solutions that can contribute to the reduction of marine litter.
Take Action
- Keep an eye out for identifiable marine litter whenever you are at the beach
- Download your own SAS Return To Offender campaign letter and fill in the spaces with the details of where you found the beach litter
- Download the Return To Offender Addresses here and find the manufacturer that makes your beach litter and post it off (take care to trace the big company that owns the brand, E.g. Cadbury is owned by Kraft!). We know postage can be expensive so we have also provided Freepost addresses for members of the “Dirty Dozen” worst offenders and some others.
- If you are able to, please email [email protected] with photos and details of the litter you Return To Offender!
The weekend will encourage individual beach cleans through SAS Regional Reps, SAS members, SAS supporters, SAS activists, the general public, supportive local businesses and national businesses. Most of all, SAS will actively promote individual activity of collecting just one or two items of litter from local beaches across the UK.SAS is encouraging all our supporters to take action during the weekend, becoming a part the anti-beach litter campaign.
This method of tackling the issue is a tried and tested one. Currently 5% of all litter found in the UK is from one company, Coca-Cola. Thanks to our Return To Offender campaign Coca-Cola has already responded positively and made packaging changes.
SAS aims to encourage up to 1,000 individuals to get involved with the Return to Offender initiative as a result of the weekend.
Surfers Against Sewage would like to thank the Patagonia Tides Foundation for their support in helping make this initiative possible.