Pupils lead youth parliament debate on plastics and the environment
Monday, 30 November 2009
Pupils from schools across Greater London descended on City Hall at the Greater London Assembly for a debate about the role of plastics, climate change and the environment.
The Mayor's special adviser on waste and the environment, Peter Jones OBE, oversaw a panel of judges who picked the winning school. The winner was the team from the Haberdashers Askes Boys School, Elstree.
The school children were given permission to occupy the London Assembly Members' actual debating chamber for the day to give them a real feel for political debate. Jon Sopel from the BBC's Politics Show presided over the debate to add to the sense of realism.
The pupils were supported in their public speaking by contributions from leading scientific author Dr Mark Everard and Peter Davis OBE, the Director General of the British Plastics Federation. Each team was also backed up by an enthusiastic audience of their classmates.
Jan-Erik Johansson from the Plastics 2020 Challenge was one of the judges. Speaking after the debate he said: "It was great to see such enthusiasm from the schools and a keenness to join the cut and thrust of debate in such an interesting setting. We are grateful to the Greater London Assembly making the chamber available for the day to add so much realism to the debate. The plastics industry has run these debates across Europe and we are delighted to bring the debate to London and to have one of the Mayor's advisers judge the winning team."
ENDS
Notes for editors
1. The Youth Parliament debate is part of a series of events to allow greater public debate on the role of plastics. It has been organised by the Plastics 2020 Challenge.
2. The debate took place on Friday 27 November 2009 between 9.30 am and 3.30 pm. The winning school will receive a cheque for £1,000 as the prize money towards educational projects.
3. The London Assembly's recording unit is filming the debate and it will be available on the Plastics 2020 Challenge website from early December at www.plastics2020challenge.com <http://www.plastics2020challenge.com/
4. The Plastics 2020 Challenge was launched in July 2008 at Westminster with the support of MPs from across the political spectrum. The ground-breaking campaign by the plastics industry is designed to challenge itself, ministers and consumers to set tougher targets on recycling and to stop dumping waste in landfill. The plastics industry pledged several commitments on the "four R's" - reduce, reuse, recycle and recover, including a target of doubling the amount of plastics that will be recycled by 2020. The Plastics 2020 Challenge founding members are the British Plastics Federation, PlasticsEurope and the Packaging & Films Association. Together they represent 5,000 small, medium and large enterprises that employ approximately 186,000 people across the UK.
5. Photos and interviews are be available on request. For further information please call Nick Sutcliffe on 07803 623 396 or Paul Kelly on 07500 841 459.
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