Foreign Office is first government department to join campaign to beat ocean plastic waste by cutting out single-use plastic by 98%

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has become the first government department to join ZSL’s #OneLess campaign to tackle ocean plastic, reporting a 98 per cent reduction in its use of single-use plastics.

In April 2018 the department launched an internal campaign to use less plastic and and now uses 2.5 million fewer single-use plastic items per year.

Sir Simon McDonald Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, said: “I want us to lead the way on sustainability in Whitehall and beyond. Joining the #OneLess campaign will allow us to share our expertise and consign the single-use plastic water bottle to history.”

Rachel Shairp, Project Coordinator of the #OneLess campaign, said: “Single-use plastic water bottles are unnecessary in a city like London and over the past three years we’ve seen Londoners, businesses and members of government embrace tap water and rally to transform London into a place where plastic bottled water is a thing of the past.”

The FCO has removed all plastic-bottled water from its restaurants and coffee shops to eliminate more than 54,000 units over 20 months.

Dominic Jermey, Director General of international conservation charity ZSL added: “The evidence of the damage plastic is doing to our environment is overwhelming. Since 2016 ZSL through the #OneLess campaign has removed nearly 70,000 single-use plastic bottles from the Thames alone. I am delighted to see the Foreign and Commonwealth Office taking steps to help reduce single-use plastic and I hope other government departments will follow their lead.”

In addition to the FCO, 14 embassies around the world have managed to completely eliminate avoidable single-use plastic with ZSL, and a further 40 have set out plans.

The achievement was celebrated at ZSL London Zoo where Dominic Jermey, Sir Simon McDonald, Peter Jones, Zuzana Matyasova and Rachel Shairp discussed the issues around single-use plastic waste.