The short film STOP PLASTIC of Carducci School (ICCS Pestalozzi – Florence) won the first prize of the Social Film Festival ArTelesia 2019, in the “School & University” category. The short film is the final product of “Plastic Free School and City” project, ideated and coordinated by Maria Vittoria Cangialosi, Professor and Ecotoxicologist, with Greenpeace and WWF collaboration.
The first scenes are emblematic: the purchase of plastic bottles for mineral water and soft drinks by a manager, a symbol of the multinationals as shown by the different bottles and contents on the meeting table. Among the scenes in the short film the spectacular opening of the huge letters “STOP PLASTIC” by Greenpeace volunteers of Florence, directed by Giuseppe Ungherese (Greenpeace Italia). Other movie location was the stunning WWF Oasis Stagni di Focognano, directed by Dr. Carlo Scoccianti, who collaborated in the project showing to the students the huge plastic removal from the Oasi, when it was established, and discussing with them about the impact of single use plastic and climate change on permanent and migratory birds.
“Was praiseworthy that the actors, the video makers and the Digital Art Director accepted immediately to collaborate showing a great enthusiasm and professionalism”- says the Director Maria Vittoria Cangialosi.
“It was an unforgettable experience, not only because the satisfaction of the final product, but also because I appreciated with amazement the hard work of students in this project – says Caterina Ciabatti videomaker – The information has a very important role to make people aware of the problem. Thanks to everybody that worked in this way.”
“Schools, teachers and families contribute to the education of the students as Citizen. The education about the Environment protection starts from the birth and continues during the growth at school, in the families and in the other social groups. Each person has to partecipate to the environment protection asking for politic and economic actions that promote that. – declares Mina De Luca the vice Dean of IC Centro Storico Pestalozzi – the students of Carducci and Pestalozzi secondary school and the children of primary school Vittorio Veneto were active in the project with enthusiasm and gradually awareness about the Environmental protection. This enthusiasm involved also the children of Cairoli and Serristori School.”
“The success of the project was possible thanks to the hard work of the team that involved the students (as protagonists) the Dean, the teachers, the school staff, Greenpeace, WWF and the previously mentioned people. Everybody were very happy to give their contribute to the Environmental protection and the future of the new generations – declares Cangialosi – It was moving to observe the strong motivation and the competences in awareness and mediation of the students during the meeting with the Dean, the Vice Dean, the Trustee, the Vice Mayer, the Assessor, the citizens and during the talk at Festival Nazionale dell’Economia Civile. These experiences increased the trust of the students in their action power and the responsible behaviors (as the use of water bottle, reusable containers for unpackaged snacks and the recycling) involving also their families in choosing the plastic free products and shops.”
“The short film underlines that the problem can be solved over by reducing the plastic waste – continues Cangialosi – because just the 9% of plastic waste is recycled in the world and in the major part of the developing countries there isn’t the possibility to recycle, the multinationals are the first responsible that have to promote alternative packaging. For this reason in the short film STOP PLASTIC the manager decide to use the glass bottles (returnable) instead to the plastic ones. Besides politics have to establish regulation or legislation that ban the single use plastic, like the European Parliament the last 27 March. At last the consumer has to use the power of his choice preferring the sustainable products and recycling the trash.”
“But the most sustainable solution in a word scale is the use of glass bottles (returnable) instead the plastic ones. This solution can reduce drastically the single use plastic, the plastic disposal and the relative impacts on ecosystem and human health with following saving of petrol amounts and greenhouse gases also produced by the Foto-degradation of plastic in marine environment as showed in a recent work on PLOS ONE by a team of the International Pacific Center of Hawaii”.
The project will continue next year with an other short film about a good behaviors to reduce plastic waste and the creation of fb page “Plastic Free School and City”, concede to the Instagram page “No More Plastic please” (created the last year) where citizens and schools can share documents and experiences about Plastic Free projects.
ph. courtesy Maria Vittoria Cangialosi and Paola Falqui
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