Replace Plastic App – Organized consumer protest against too much plastic

The Coast Against Plastic association in Sankt-Peter Ording on the North Sea is committed to a world without plastic waste in the oceans. Anyone who thinks that the association is limited to clean-ups on the coast is mistaken. The association thinks bigger and organizes consumer protests via the Replace Plastic app it developed itself – discreetly and effectively directly to manufacturers:

«We believe that it’s not enough to just pick up plastic waste. We need to stop producing it.” Frank Timrot, Co-Founder Küste gegen Plastik e.V.

The problem is sufficiently well known: Plastic is flooding our oceans. Microplastics, the tiny debris from plastic cups, packaging and bags, can now be found in the most remote places around the world. Yet many manufacturers are cripplingly slow to respond. Individually wrapped cookies, fruit wrapped in plastic, or hard plastic bowls that are immediately disposed of in the trash can after a single use – the packaging mania knows no bounds. In the cosmetics industry, there are still plenty of companies that deliberately add microplastics to their products such as exfoliants.

Many companies argue that consumers want this type of packaging. The association Küste-gegen-Plastik has developed an app to show that this is not the case. After downloading the Replace Plastic app, a scanner opens to scan the barcode of the product. As soon as a product has been reported by 20 people, the manufacturer receives an automated message in the name of the association with a request to reconsider the packaging..