Take action in Amsterdam

In our oceans, there is one plastic bottle for every five fish. By 2050, bottles will outnumber fish. More recently it suddenly became more pressing. In October 2018, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the international body for assessing the science related to climate change – has warned that there are only 12 years left for the world to limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5°C to avoid an environmental catastrophe. 12 years! Already, we are seeing massive climate changes all over the world, which is having an adverse impact on the environment. We have to move on this issue now.

But to many people out there, we are the villains. We are big users of items like boxes, tape and bubble wrap, not to mention trucks and eco-unfriendly, long-haul transport. But are we really the bad guys?

Fortunately, the start of 2019 is a great time for making resolutions. So we thought members of our 39 Club – the generation who seems to care more about the problem than most – could do something practical about it. And prove that we are part of the solution.

To help push us in this direction, the 39 Club Conference in Amsterdam will have an eco touch. On the Saturday, we always have a sporting activity of some kind. And this year, we are going fishing. For plastic. In canals.

Amsterdam is a great place to do this. Holland is home to the youngest plastics clean-up millionaire, Boyan Slat, who invented a machine that floats on the world’s oceans collecting plastic waste. He has turned his engineering idea into a multimillion dollar non-governmental organization and is receiving huge investment to support his work. We are joining his crusade – and the Dutch are going to love you for it.

The FIDI 39 Club will embrace this challenge, with the main objective of collecting as much plastic as possible. We will be split into groups on boats, with each team aiming to collect more plastic than the opposition. The winning team will receive a prize (but we’re all winners here obviously). An interesting detail is that our boats are made of the plastic that has already been collected from the canals.

Act now to become part of this fun and useful project. If you don’t want to see this pollution and would like to make a difference, come and join us on our boats. It might be a small urban canal. But small streams feed into mighty oceans. And your individual contribution will be part of a much bigger movement to make our oceans cleaner.

This action is just the start. We would like to have more concrete actions during the Conference and want to hear from you. Do you have ideas about what we could do differently during the Conference to avoid the use of plastic? If you have any suggestions, please email us at 39club@fidi.org and come on board with our eco-friendly project!