A 12-year-old girl who contributed to a climate report under consideration by the Scottish Government says she immediately recycled her Greta Thunberg badge because it was made of plastic.
Margaret, from the Western Isles, is part of the Scottish Children’s Parliament, an organisation that works to empower young people across the country.
As part of her role, she was asked to be one of the Children’s Parliament’s “investigators” who helped craft the Scottish Climate Assembly’s report published this week, which contains 81 recommendations for the Scottish Government to help protect the environment.
The Western Isles youngster, and more than 100 other Scottish children, put forward “calls to action” that have been incorporated into the report, which government ministers have six months to respond to.
The children spent five months learning all about the evidence for climate change, and shared their ideas on what Scotland can do to become a greener nation.
‘It’s going to be our planet’
Margaret’s “call to action” proposal incorporated into the assembly’s report is an “eat for the planet week”.
She said: “It’s been amazing, it’s such a big opportunity and I’ve really enjoyed it.
“I’ve met so many new people, and I’ve learned so much about everything about Scotland and what we’re doing to tackle climate change, and what we need to do.
“I felt really special that I was giving my ideas to people, and one of them is being considered by the government right now.
“The idea is for an eat for the planet week, where you can try to be a little bit vegetarian for a couple of days, or try and go vegan a bit, and it would be a national thing, you wouldn’t need to take part if you didn’t want to.
“It would just be to cut down on our meat.
“I do eat vegetarian sometimes, I’m known for my lettuce love.
“We’re going to be there in the future, it’s going to be our planet, us children are going to be the ones that will have to look after it for the next generation.
“So it’s really important we keep the planet as good as we got it.”
Margaret got ‘really annoyed’ that Greta badge was made of plastic
Margaret explained she has “always loved my planet”, and has grown up with a love of nature, and decided to start taking a more active role in protecting it after seeing pictures of pollution.
She continued: “I started talking to my friends about it, and we started saying to each other that we have to help.
“We all got badges that say I’m With Greta, but they were made of plastic, something Greta is against, so I got really annoyed and got rid of my badge, I went and recycled it.
“I put it right in my blue bin and just left it there until it was emptied.”
A message for the grown-ups
She added: “The changes I’d like to see in Scotland is no plastic, no plastic toys or anything.
“I love toys, I don’t like the plastic ones, in fact, I just prefer soft toys.
“But it’s not just plastic, you need to recycle, you don’t have a choice you have to recycle because that will cut out on so much, and also for there to be less meat in our diets – maybe just three times a week, just cut back a bit.
“When I’m a grown-up, there will be children thinking, they’re not listening to us, we want to do this, we want the earth to be different, and it will be because we aren’t doing enough.
“So no plastic, a little bit less meat, and I think that would do Scotland some good.
“Please listen to us.”
