“In 2018 we built the world’s first sailing boat, made from already used plastic.”
Discover more stories of hope with Eliane and other climate innovators on the newly released ‘The Green Room – What (On Earth’s) The Story’ film on You Tube.
Full film: https://youtu.be/UWoO9UmWscM
Trailer: https://youtu.be/zmQqj5WHSPM
Ben Morison is CEO of Far & Wide Travel, and has worked in the Africa travel industry all his life. He started the Flipflopi Project after witnessing the dramatic impact that plastics are having on the continent that has given so much to him. He became convinced that plastic was far too valuable, versatile and often beautiful to be used just once and thrown away. His mission; ‘a world without single-use plastics’.
Timeline
00.00 – 04.38: Introducing Ben Morison
04.44 – 07.07: Building a boat out of re-cycled plastic
07.10 – 08.35 : How Ben arrived at Flipflopi
08.36 – 10.54: Positive African Voices & Leadership Roles
10.56 – 14.20: Fast Emerging Consumer Populations and Winning the Plastics Challenge
14.24 – 18.15: Bringing value to re-cycled plastic
18.17 – 21.18: Using creativity to convene
21.20 – 24.11: The Wanderful Exercise: Finding value in ‘rubbish’
24.32 – 29.07: Epilogue: Waste as an act of appreciation
29.08 – 30.02: Closing credits
Quotations
“In 2018 we built the world’s first sailing boat, made from already used plastic.” (Ben)
“The reality of this challenge we have around plastic pollution and climate change generally, is it needs a holistic global approach. So what’s lacking here is confident, cheerful, positive voices from… African voices, who are taking leadership roles… and if you look around there’s not really many strong leadership roles, positive one’s too, that are coming from our environment. It’s really important for us to have that positive voice.” (Ben)
“The reality is, if I am a young man in Kenya and I am on a date with somebody, I’ll be in a car… I will wind down the window, I will drink my bottle of water and I will throw it out the window in a deliberate ostentatious show of… ‘I’ve arrived, I’m a consumer now.” (Ben)
“We as the developed world have had the starter, main course and dessert of this amazing thing called plastic… it’s developed our economies and now… just as some other parts of the world are just starting to develop consumer economies… we… how dare we go… oh we don’t want you to start with that (plastic). So, there’s some complexity to how we as a global community have this conversation. We have to be nuanced and thoughtful.” (Ben)
“If you give value to anything… stuff will happen. So what we wanted to show by building a boat was, using already used plastic… we can build a boat. That’s got value as a creative art object. It’s got value as something you go fishing in or take tourists in or travel in. It’s not really about the boat, it’s about the fact we were able to re-cycle or re-use and create something of value.” (Ben)
“The boat is a convener. If I arrive up the Clyde in a brightly coloured boat that looks like Elmer the Elephant, I can guarantee that the policy makers will definitely be keen to come and welcome it in and its going to draw lots and lots of crowds of people, because they want to see it. Of course, for the media it’s a very interesting thing to capture, so you now have the three ingredients you want to engage with.” (Ben)
Social Media
Ben Morison
Web https://www.theflipflopi.com/
Twitter @theflipflopi
Instagram @theflipflopi
David Pearl
Twitter @DavidPearlHere
Instagram @davidpearl_here
Web: www.davidpearl.net
Andrew Paine (Producer & Audio Engineer)
Twitter @ItPainesMe
