I realised the pollution crisis in Ireland reached an all-time high when I set out on January 1st for a walk along Sandymount promenade with my family. Like most of my walks along our beaches and rivers for the past two years, I was again confronted with a distressing sight of severe plastic pollution that washed up from the sea. The rocks, beach, pedestrian walkways, parking lots, and roadside curbs were all severely littered with single-use plastic shopping bags, chip bags, plastic lolly-pop sticks, cigarettes butts, etc.

I then decided to visit the Dodder River in the Riverview area, and another distressing image of single-use bags, plastic bottles, disposable coffee cups, toilet paper, wet wipes, condoms and sanitary towels were trapped in branches on the banks of the river greeted me.

I am writing to The Prime Minister of Ireland and the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, to ask the Government to take decisive action on Ireland's plastic pollution crisis. 

We are on a quest to solve this severe marine litter problem that has engulfed beautiful Ireland, and we need your assistance in this urgent matter. 

I run an Irish non-profit organisation called "The Planet Calls" with my co-founder, Amour Setter. We are a Sustainability Accelerator focused on bringing innovative ideas to market that solve environmental, social and governance problems. We currently have 350 European Startups on our database, offering alternative plastic materials, new recycling innovations and litter collection solutions. We are focused on getting to the core of the plastic pollution problem by launching upstream and downstream solutions to market. 

However, we do not have sufficient funding to support all these great ideas and launch them to the Irish and European markets. We require more resources from the Irish Government so that we move forward faster for the planet.

I, therefore, ask of you if you will be willing to sign our petition that will be sent with my letter to our Prime Minister so that he can refer us to a key decision-maker in Ireland who will be able to provide state funding for our sustainability accelerator so that we tackle the core issues of the plastic crises in our country.

Please sign the petition. All you need to do is to put your name and email down to show your support.

Sustainably yours,
Leslie Maliepaard
Co-founder of The Planet Calls

Email: social@theplanetcalls.com 
Website: www.theplanetcalls.com
TEDx Marine Plastics Talk www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEHkwhqjuBk