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 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.
How To Live Without Plastic transforms anyone with a smartphone or video call interface into a citizen-anthropologist in 5 steps.
- Young people interview old people, gathering basic data about them (year of birth, rural//urban upbringing, education – no personal data).
- They send their videos to See Through Together, where an IT team adds transcripts (and translations) into an open-source archive.
- 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.
- Anyone with an internet connection can 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.
- Anyone with an interned connection can create their own highlight reel by cutting-and-pasting their favourite sound bites and sending it to the How To Live Without Plastic team, who will edit it into a unique intercut video, uploaded to the same YouTube channel.
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. This is 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?
- 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 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 their Goal 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 our simple instructions and send us the video file to upload to YouTube and 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 – ideal for schools, churches, activists, company ESG programmes, Scouts, local and 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 made 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. Video playlist here, article here.
- 2023: secondary school children at HIV orphanages in the Nairobi slum of Mathare were 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 build its international network of filmmakers, IT experts, administrators to support the zero-budget development of the project.
- 2026: Pilot launch.
How
Like all See Through projects, How To Live Without Plastic is done without any money and is 100% driven by people who share our Goal of Speeding Up Carbon Drawdown by Helping the Inactive Become Active.
Individuals can help in four ways:
- User: viewing, liking, sharing How To Live Without Plastic content online.
- Contributor: recording and submitting interviews
- Counsellor: helping spread the word with outreach to their own networks
- Colleague: joining the See Through Together team making and maintaining the project
Businesses can help in four ways:
- Participant: sharing How To Live Without Plastic content online
- Pioneer: encouraging their employees to get involved
- Partner: signing a Memorandum of Understanding with See Through Together
- Supporter: signing a contract with a See Through Together preferred partner