Global oral history for a sustainable future

There’s no need to imagine a world without plastic – just ask an old person. This open-source video project is a global repository of wisdom, made up of transcripts and videos taken by a worldwide network of citizen-anthropologist-activists.

What

Like scientists scouring the rainforest for a cure to cancer, How To Live Without Plastic asks the diminishing tribe of elders who grew up in a pre-plastic era how they used to live before plastic got everywhere.

In creating this public resource, See Through Together has also developed

• a simple call to action for any groups or network with an interest in plastic reduction
• a lens to empower older people as repositories of critical wisdom for the future, rather than dusty archives of obsolete knowledge
• a bridge between young interviewees who will have to live through the worst of our climate crisis, and the generation who knew a world before rampant consumerism

How

How To Live Without Plastic transforms anyone with a smartphone or laptop and an internet connection into a citizen-anthropologist in 5 steps:

1. Young people interview old people, gathering basic data about them (year of birth, rural/urban upbringing, education – no personal data), submitted via this form.
2. They send their videos to See Through Together, where an IT team adds transcripts (and translations) to an open-source archive.
3. Videos are uploaded to the How To Live Without Plastic Playlist on the See Through Together YouTube channel, where they can be shared with friends and family, and viewed by anyone with internet access.
4. Anyone with an internet connection will be able to access the See Through Together website and mine the database for nuggets of wisdom that might speed our journey to a sustainable future, and share their insights.
5. Anyone with an internet connection can create their own unique compilation video by cutting-and-pasting their favourite sound bites into a script. The How To Live Without Plastic team will edit it into a unique intercut video, and upload it to the same YouTube channel to share your particular insight.

For detailed instructions, see below.

Why

How To Live Without Plastic can help See Through’s Goal of speeding up carbon drawdown in the following ways:

• Uncover a hitherto hidden sustainable alternative to petrochemical-derived plastics. The ‘moonshot’ goal. Might an 84-year-old in Peru, Mongolia, Belgium, Uganda, or Bangladesh hold a sustainability silver bullet in their heads, that an 11-year-old in Thailand, New Zealand or Mexico might uncover, and a technologist somewhere else see the means to replace plastic sustainably at scale?
• A clear, fun, achievable Call To Action to energise and activate young people to think about sustainability in an interactive, positive way.
• A respectful, systematic, scalable way to ask our elders to guide our future, by making their unique experiences available for the whole world, and subsequent generations, to learn from.

Who

Curator

How To Live Without Plastic is an initiative from See Through Together, a global network of climate activists working pro bono towards theirGoal of Speeding Up Carbon Drawdown by Helping The Inactive Become Active’.

Tech

See Through Together’s IT team includes experts from the UK, Uganda, Ghana, Kenya and USA, contributing their expertise, time and resources to build a secure, queryable database. Join us if you can help!

Contributor

• Any individual can record an interview in a few minutes. Just find an old person (face-to-face with your smartphone, or remotely via a video call), follow the simple instructions below to send us your video and form to add to the archive.
• Interested groups, NGOs or businesses can adopt How To Live Without Plastic as a fun, ready-made, low-maintenance/high impact call to action to energize their members. It’s ideal for schools, churches, activists, company ESG programmes, Scouts, local & international NGOs etc.

When

How To Live Without Plastic has been developed over 5 years by different parts of the See Through Network:

• 2021: Prototype filmed as an early See Through News experiment in Salisbury, UK
• 2022: Novice filmmakers in North London make videos for 1 Sunday Morning, 4 Films, a ‘unique experiment in community filmmaking’, a 2-month See Through News project culminating in a World Premiere community screening.
• 2023: Secondary school children at HIV orphanages in the Nairobi slum of Mathare are remotely mentored by TV news professionals, including some about plastic for See Through News project Global Reporter Intensive Training (GRIT). Two of their short films won international awards. Video playlist here, article here, including free various filmmaking training materials.
• 2024-5: See Through builds its international network of filmmakers, IT experts, administrators to support the zero-budget development of the project.
• 2026: Pilot launch.

Team

Like all See Through projects, How To Live Without Plastic is happening without any money. It is 100% driven by people who share our Goal of Speeding Up Carbon Drawdown by Helping the Inactive Become Active, with web hosting transparently donated by Partners supporting our Goal.

Individuals can help in four ways:

1. User: viewing, liking, sharing  How To Live Without Plastic content online
2. Contributor: recording and submitting interviews 
3. Counsellor: helping spread the word with outreach to their own networks
4. Colleague: joining the See Through Together team making and maintaining the project

Businesses can help in four ways:

1. Participant: sharing How To Live Without Plastic content online
2. Pioneer: encouraging their employees to get involved
3. Partner: signing a Memorandum of Understanding with See Through Together
4. Supporter: signing a contract with a See Through Together preferred partner

Further details on how to join on the See Through Together website.

Instructions

1. Interviewee

Find anyone who grew up in a pre-plastic era.

Plastic became ubiquitous in the developed world in the 1960s, so anyone born before then should have a memory of life before plastic. In the Global South, people born in the ’60s or even ’70s may recall a pre-plastic life.

Use whatever language they are most comfortable in. If it’s an uncommon one, we may ask for your translation help.

2. Consent

Make sure the interviewee understands what the video is for and how it will be used, i.e. informed consent. To help answer any questions:

• Complete the submission form with the interviewee
• Show them videos on the How To Live Without Plastic YouTube playlist
• Read from the article you’re now reading
• Visit the See Through Together website

3. Filming

Media: if you’re remote from the interviewee, record a video call. If you’re in person, use your smartphone.

Aspect: hold the phone horizontally (landscape), not vertically (portrait). Resting the phone on something, or using a tripod is best if possible, but if not just hold the phone as steadily as you can, and avoid bumping it. Even better, get someone else to record it so you can focus on the questions!

Lighting: keep the main light source (the sun, if outdoors, the strongest light, if indoors) shining on the interviewee’s face, so they’re not back-lit. Avoid having other people in the background, unless they’re happy to be filmed.

Audio: find somewhere quiet and keep the phone as close to the interviewee as is comfortable (use a wide angle lens, if you have a choice)

Duration: 5-10 minutes should be fine. Avoid interrupting the interviewee, but do try to keep them on the subject of plastic. It’s easier if it’s one continuous interview, but if that’s not possible it’s fine to send it in different parts.

4. Questions:

To make sure we match the right video with the right submission form, as soon as you’re recording please first ask the interviewee to state their name and year of birth.

Start by saying something like:

‘I’ve grown up in a world where plastic is everywhere, and we need to learn how to live without it. That’s why we’re asking you, as you remember how to live without plastic. Can you tell me how you managed without plastic?.

If the interviewee struggles to answer, or starts repeating themselves, here are some prompt/nudge suggestions:

• How did you transport and keep food before plastic?
• What containers did you use to store things?
• Before disposable, single-use plastic items, what did you use instead?
• Is there anything that used to work better, before plastic replaced it?
• What do you think we absolutely need plastic for, that’s much better than before it came along?

If you’re running out of ideas, try just looking around you for any plastic item (like a carrier bag, pen, bucket, wrapper, electronic item, medical device, agricultural supply or kitchen item) and asking what they used to use before.

5. Submission

Complete this submission form to make sure we get the right data.

If you’re part of a team, send your video to the co-ordinator, who will then forward it to us.

If you’re doing this as an individual, email htlwp@seethroughtogether.org. If you know it, please include the size of the interview video file, and we’ll send you options for sending or uploading it.

Please just send us the unedited video file, without any added music or captions.

Thanks for taking part!

To enquire about joining the See Through Together team behind this project or supporting this or other other See Through ecosystem projects, as an individual or a business, do so via the See Through Together website.