The story of Rebecca Hosking

In the war against plastic bags, leaders need to charge wisely, and BBC photographer Rebecca Hosking is one of them.

In 2006, Rebecca Hosking, a female photographer of BBC, went to Hawaiian waters to shoot a documentary about wildlife. The tragic scene on midway made her soul tremble: hundreds of albatrosses landed on the beach.

The stomachs of these beautiful birds have been exposed to the sun, and plastic particles are scattered between feathers and bones. Fragments of various plastic objects-plastic bags, toys, asthma devices, ballpoint pens, cigarette filters, toothbrushes, combs and beverage bottle caps-were exposed from the stomach of the dead albatross.

These birds apparently suffocated after eating plastic residue.

Worse scenes followed: whales, seals, turtles and so on. All died of plastic fragments. Where plastic particles floating in the ocean are concentrated, animals will surely die to pieces on the beach. In the downwind area of Midway Island, Rebecca saw thousands of newly hatched albatross chicks either dying or crawling weakly on the ground. She picked up a live bird, which pecked her finger and soon died.

At that moment, Rebecca collapsed in anger and depression.

Back in her hometown of Modbury, England, Rebecca began to ban plastic bags after editing this documentary. Within a month, together with her childhood friends, she broadcasted the video of wildlife survival to her hometown and invited 43 retailers in the town to watch a documentary in the bar and discuss the action plan to ban plastic bags. After six months of experiments, all the communities that randomly throw plastic bags use cloth bags, and 500,000 plastic bags are less thrown into nature.

Modbury became the first town in Europe to completely ban plastic bags. Rebecca's courage and behavior are well known in Britain. The person in charge of Greenpeace said, "She changed the attitude of the British towards plastic bags in a few months. She associated what she saw and heard in the Pacific with the country where she lived. She should be the British Prime Minister. "

Rebecca's action proves to people: don't wait for the government and supermarkets to do it. As long as citizens act consciously, they can generate great power. Thousands of people wrote to pay tribute to her, and more than 80 towns volunteered to bid farewell to plastic bags. In June 2007, 33 districts in London announced that they would adopt legislation to deal with the "harm of plastic bags". As an ordinary person, she sends a message to other ordinary people in simple language: there are some things that we can't be careless about.

In his first "green speech" after taking office, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown mentioned that he would call a meeting of all supermarket executives to discuss how to eliminate plastic bags. I believe we can eliminate disposable plastic bags and find sustainable substitutes. No lobbying, no debate. Rebecca persuaded the Prime Minister to declare war on plastic bags. Brown wrote to the administrator of Modbury Town, "People in Modbury should be proud of their leadership".

Rebecca, born in 1974, graduated from Edinburgh University and won the All-UK Environment and Media Award in June 2007. ;