Girl Guides
A global movement, with ambitious sustainability goals, taking local actions to reduce their footprint.
Girl power
On International Day of the Girl 2020, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts asked their youth members from 100 countries what issues they were most concerned about and what they wanted to change about the world. Their number one worry was the environment. On 22 February 2022, Girl Guides from around the world began a three-year journey to become environmentally conscious leaders.
By working alongside the EPA, Girl Guides NSW, ACT and NT were able to install sorting stations in all Girl Guides campsites across NSW. They also upskilled not just Guides, but also their families and those renting the campsites to sort their waste. This was to minimise Girl Guides’ contribution to landfill.
The education program not only raised awareness of the phase-out of single use plastics but built a shift in attitudes around all single-use items. Surveys reflected a dramatic change in how important people felt about not using single-use plastic. After the program, reduction to landfill changed from 44% to 73%.
Before the program, one participant couldn’t understand the importance of sorting waste, and considered it a “waste of time”. Webinars about the project included information on the plastics creation process, its impact on the environment, difficulties in breaking down and why Girl Guides want to create this shift away from a reliance on plastic. Following this, the participant showed a huge shift in attitude towards the issue. She is now a true leader in the space, attempting to minimise all single-use items, implementing waste sorting at the nearby campsite and is actively looking for more ways to drive sustainability within Girl Guides.
The data also shows the progress Girl Guides has made. At one campsite for 30 people over two days, a few garbage bags of unsorted waste would normally be produced and eventually sent to landfill. After installing waste sorting bins and with campers who were educated in sorting, only 300 grams of landfill waste was produced, with the rest either being recycled, composted or not being created in the first place due to better buying decisions.