Words and photos by Georgia Hartley |
When it comes to wanting to get your voice heard either in society or within the government, petitions are a good way to do that. Petitions can be found in a written form as well as an online form. The written forms will usually be found with people holding clipboards that approach you on the street, that ask you to join their campaign. Online petitions can commonly be found on Facebook and Twitter. Depending on the reaction and number of signatures a petition gets determines what is the outcome is. Petitions created and signed up for on the government petition service, but must reach a certain number of signatures before anything will happen. If a petition gets 10,000 signatures, Parliament will respond. If this happens, Parliament will make a comment on it expressing their views and respond in an appropriate way. In relation to the environment and the attempt to use less one-use plastics and making plastic more wildly recycled, the petition ‘reduce and end unnecessary single-plastics’ was spread around the UK. This petition gained 11,000 signatures, making parliament respond.
“The Government wants to leave our environment in a better state than we found it, we are already a world leader in tackling plastic waste”
www.petition.parliament.uk (Mar 2018)
If a petition gets over 100,000 signatures it will go up for debate in Parliament. If Parliament agrees with the petition, a new law will be created to back up their beliefs. One example of Parliament debating a petition about the environment was in 2018. Single-use plastics became a popular topic in relation to the environment because a lot of people finally realised the harm, they cause the planet. The petition was to ‘Require supermarkets to offer a plastic-free option for all their fruit & veg.’ Parliament responded to this petition by working with retailers to try and minimise the number of plastics used.
A person of any age can create a petition. The petition to stop giving plastic toys in children’s fast food meals was created by 9-year-old Ella and 7-year-old Caitlin, which is currently at 165,000 signatures. This petition was started on Change.org, a site dedicated to people inciting change. In the introduction to this petition, it tells us all about what their aim is and what they are trying it achieve. This petition explains the harm to the environment and wildlife because of pollution in the sea. The toys that come in fast food children’s meals only occupy the children for a couple of minutes while they are eating, and very often don’t get played with again after that. For the people who are keeping up with this petition and want to see the end outcome, it continues to be updated. The last update was about how the petition has been taken to the fast food companies and they are currently awaiting a response.
In the subject area of the environment, trying to save it and being environmentally friendly, petitions can be an important way for our voices to be heard. A lot of people want to be more environmentally friendly but aren’t quite sure what to do about it. Following tips on how to help the environment is a good start. However, signing something which might change the way the world works is a bigger and better step. One current petition in relation to the environment is about banning farms from keeping animals in cages. This petition is still currently live and has 39,000 signatures. For anything to be done in the fight against the damage being done to the environment, it is going to have to be a new/change act of law. One of the best ways to change/introduce new acts of law is because of the petitions debated in Parliament.
Want to help the environment in a big way? Sign up and follow the petitions which are centred around saving the environment to help make a change!