Barely two weeks back in the Netherlands and already full with Trashless stories to tell!
Beceause my house is a mess for the next months with workers drilling the walls, spreading a lot of noise and dust, I decided to recover from my jetlag on the island of #Texel. There I met some beautifull people, like the initiator of Plastic free Texel, the founder of #TexelZeroWasteand a worker of #Ecomare. The first one took me to the #Slufter. A beautifull piece of nature on the shore and surprisingly just as full of microplastics as an average Panamenean beach. Fortunately most people from Texel have gotten used to picking up trash while walking on the beach, I learned. He told me about his project and an action where he and two friends dressed themselves up as very old men, calling themselves “The old people against plastic.” As the man himself is past the retirement age, I thought that revealed a great sense of humor! On their next action they are going to go to the local Albert Heijn and educate the consumers with flyers with trashfacts written on it.
The next day, I went to Ecomare to talk about the consequences of trash for sealife and just when I thougth I was going to miss out on a date with the founder of Texel Zero Waste, I got her Instagram message. Half an hour later we were setteled behind a cup of hot chocolate milk in a beach bar, while the storm outside was raging around. The originally Bulgarian woman managed to create awareness for many fellow Texel inhabitants and tries to live as plastic free as possible. We had such a good time exchanging stories and experiences, it almost felt like she was an old friend. If you ever fear being alone or bored when you go somewhere, try doing something for the Earth and meet up with like minded people. I love it! If you go to our community map and invite somebody for a trashwalk, you too could spend your hollidays like this. I will post some short fragments of the interviews later this month (as soon as I have a place to stay for a while 
).
The next week I met up with Tycho from the Ceuvel to talk about a new Trashlesstival. Yess it is on!! Put june 1st in your agenda's, because we are going to trashcontest, trash-sup, trash-art, trashdate and trashhunt, accompanied with good DJ Music, Workshops and lectures!
In the meantime Arthur attended the plastic revolution meetup in Pakhuis de Zwijger, the Dopper Change making Challenge in the impact hub and The Sup Cleanup in Leiden, together with the Plastic Soup Surfer.
Last weekend we met up with Yvonne Scholte, Moira van Damme and @marjoleinmoens, because we are working on a beautifull artistic and creative project for our Naked Truth about Plastic Birthday Kalendar. What a flow, so many ideas and an affluence of models who are willing to put their time and creativity into this project. I could go on writing about this forever but first I must prepare the Panama Presentation. In case you did not know yet, next friday we will talk about our adventures and the things we have learned while travelling trough Panama for our awareness, education and cleanup programme there. Check the Roots event to learn more about it and feel welcome to join.
So eh.....we actually agreed to take it a bit more easy this year... what happened?!?! All I can say is. It is pretty freaking amazing what can be created when like minded people come together for positive change and yess, volunteers are very welcome so we can continue keeping track of all the opportunities and ideas to create more impact, more amazing projects and more valuable connections for lasting positive change.
