Chipping away at our plastic habit, one water bottle at a time

By Patricia Lane & Ziya Merchant | October 3rd 2023

Ziya Merchant’s multi-school campaign is using plastic water bottles to raise awareness about climate justice.

Inspired by Mireta Strandberg-Salmon's campaigns to end bottled water sales at her own high school and at Simon Fraser University, 17-year-old Ziya founded Phasing Out Plastic Bottles (POPB), which in 2022-23 had 15-plus chapters in schools across British Columbia’s Lower Mainland and the United States. This year, POPB has interest from schools in other parts of the U.S. and throughout Canada.

Ziya is a 2023 recipient of the Youth Climate Activist Award from the BC Institute for Sustainability, Education and Action.

Tell us about Phasing Out Plastic Bottles.

We meet with other high school students and help them analyze where they can have the most impact in the drive to eliminate the use of plastic bottles. Some schools do not have water fountains, so that has to be the place to start. In other cases, schools receive funding from selling plastic water bottles and have contracts with vending machine companies. Others may already have stopped sales and are ready to begin raising awareness about the social justice aspects of bottled water.