Click here to read a report on Ellen MacArthur’s speech at the first Eco Island conference in Cowes, Ise of Wight, in March 2008.
In her speech she contrasts the need to preserve resources during her ocean voyages with today’s throwaway consumer attitudes. She says:
“It is not that people are lazy, it is just that we have grown up in a time when everything is available and cheap. If we want something, all we have to do is go out to the supermarket. We need to get back to a stage where we value what we have. On a boat you learn to value the resources you have and to make the most of them.”
In her recent (BBC Radio 4) Desert Island Discs interview, she talks about tearing off the corner of a paper towel rather than using a whole sheet – excellent.
Following that approach, rather than just saying ‘plastic bags not good, ban plastic bags’, people could start seeing plastic bags (and other man-made things) as precious resources to be stored and valued.
Ventnor Blog and Eco Island conference speech report
See also Dame Ellen MacArthur on this blog.
