A few months ago, Dopper got in touch with THE SKATEROOM with a simple, but impactful, campaign: 7% Is Not Enough. This is a fight against single-use plastic, and a push for the EU to improve their disappointing policy for plastic use regulations. We were convinced, and wanted to spread the world. But we wanted to do more too. So we got to work on some initiatives to rid our company of plastic.

Not heard of Dopper? They’re a Dutch company, a fellow B Corp, and before you make assumptions: no, they’re so much more than a water-bottle brand. Dopper are on the march against single-use plastic. Literally.

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“When we heard the EU is implementing new measures to reduce single-use plastic pollution, we got excited. But then we found out that all global government and industry commitments combined only reduce the amount of single-use plastic waste entering our oceans by 7%.” – 7% Is Not Enough, Dopper.

On September 18th (World Cleanup Day), the European Parliament will feel the full force of Dopper’s campaign and advocates, a movement to ban the #1 most harmful plastic product in circulation today.

Here are some really uncool facts to turn your stomach (sorry in advance):

• 8 million tons of plastic enter our oceans every year. This does not decompose, it just breaks down into smaller pieces which impact the ecosystem dramatically.
• Every minute, a truckload of plastic enters the ocean.
• Meanwhile, during that same minute, 1 million single-use plastic bottles are purchased.
• The EU has pledged to reduce this amount by just 7%.

Not good enough.

It’s time to sign The Dopper Wave and ban single-use plastic from our lives and companies.

Going further

As a proud B Corp, THE SKATEROOM is committed to transparency and sustainability in our work. Let’s be real. Truly planet-friendly business is a difficult and endless journey. We know consumerism isn’t the planet’s friend, which is why we work on a more conscious consumption model which directly creates social change around the world. But we can’t pretend we’re 100% sustainable yet in terms of our production. And we couldn’t ‘talk the talk’ about the Dopper campaign without ‘walking the walk’.

Signing The Dopper Wave is a real step towards achieving that goal, but we have more in the bag too. We have made a commitment to fight against plastic – reducing our own plastic footprint by finding alternatives for all packaging and single-use plastic products in-house.

As of September, we have started working with Bel Albatros to recycle the plastic which we cannot yet remove from our production chain. Bel Albatros transforms recycled plastic waste into a material which can be used to create furniture and other products, which companies can then buy and use in their office. Tempted?

And, finally, thanks to the wonders of organic cotton (which uses 75% less water to grow than virgin cotton), we have eliminated as much plastic packaging as possible from our art products. This has meant a serious reduction in our plastic use. And we’re still on the lookout for more ways to do better.

Join us in The Dopper Wave pledge of 4,801 individuals and 606 organizations committed to stop using environmentally harmful plastic bottles in their lives and work today.