Where. We. Stand.

It has been well documented that the people who are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change are those who have the least: low lying, poor nations who risk having their homes flooded; fishing reliant communities who find it harder and harder to feed themselves because stocks are crashing; poorer parts of our own communities who face food insecurity already.

It’s the same with plastic pollution. It affects those in poorer countries more than it does us here in the west because of the way we have been shipping our waste abroad. It often affects those who cannot help themselves.

Here at 2 Minute HQ we campaign to help clean up our planet, 2 minutes at a time. We have a global family who pick up litter each and every day from beaches, town and cities all over the world. We don’t see colour. We see people. However, as we head towards 2 Minute Day this Sunday, we realise now is the time to make our stand in the fight against inequality, just as we fight for environmental justice, so we must also fight for racial justice. The two are often closely linked.

What do we do? We are based in Cornwall in the UK and enjoy the privilege of living in a nice place. We might face a risk from rising sea levels but we do not suffer prejudice. Our location might hold us back economically, but, for many of us, it’s our choice to be here. We have choices. Others, we know, have none and have their choices removed by the way our society operates. We abhor that.

So what do we do?

Firstly we would like to extend a welcoming hand to anyone of any colour, and especially minorities, as we always have done.

Secondly, and most importantly, we would like to do what we can to help communities right now. We are working on a project to put hand sanitisers on as many of our 2 Minute Stations as we can. We can’t do them all at once, but we pledge, here and now, to fit them in communities that are more vulnerable to infection and are affected adversely by litter of any type. Let us know if that’s your community. Following the COVID crisis we anticipate that some of our boards will be out of action in the future. We will donate any returned to us to communities that might benefit from them. Again, please let us know if that’s your community.

Lastly, we’d like you to tell us what we can do. We welcome any comments or suggestions as to how we, an environmental charity that aims to be inclusive and people and planet positive, can do more to ensure that now and into the future black lives matter.

Thank you.

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