Zero Waste Victoria presents the Zero Waste Festival online - a festival of hope, action and regeneration!

Our Zero Waste Festival vision is to connect a community of changemakers who are inspired, passionate and empowered about a waste-free future. Our mission? We generate inclusive conversations to inspire zero-waste actions.

Zero Waste Victoria presents a screening of “Plastic Alarm” followed by a panel of incredible young changemakers! We’re inviting the whole family, teachers and schools to tune into this!

THE FILM

Plastic Alarm (22 minutes)

The power of kids teaching kids with 12-year-old Arlian inspiring kids around the world and empowering them to be global citizens with solutions to plastic pollution and creating a sustainable future together.

MEET THE YOUNG CHANGEMAKERS PANEL

THE HOST

Lucy Skelton, Student Voice Network

Lucy Skelton is the 18 year old founder and Lead Student Organiser at the Student Voice Network. The national youth platform that empowers young people to take action on the issues that are important to them.

The Student Voice Network is a free, virtual youth platform for students from across Australia to come together, share resources and take collective action on the issues that are important to us. That’s climate change, gender equality, waste and so much more! SVN's team members are supported to create their own projects and initiatives that we can share across the nation! If you are or know a young person aged 12-25 who is passionate about change SVN would love to hear from you! Please contact SVN. SVN are a completely student-run and a volunteer-based network that believes in the power of young people and our ability to create meaningful change!

THE PANELISTS

Arlian Ecker, Plastic Free Boy

Since 2017, 13-year-old Arlian known as 'Plastic Free Boy', has united over 790 000 children by sharing his inspiring and educational documentary 'Plastic Alarm' in schools internationally, showcasing the problems and solutions of plastic pollution.

He engages school children with his mission in protecting the ocean and our waterways, not only for marine animals but for future generations, by highlighting scientific facts such as microplastic and its effects on human health.

Arlian's ongoing film making campaign and international speaker engagements have been featured on national media, been nominated for the Department of Environment 'Green Globe Awards' and earned him titles such as 2019 Youth Ambassador for 'Clean Up Australia Day' and 'World Clean Up Day'.

As a Plenary Speaker for the Sustainability of Cities at the 2019 Asia Pacific Cities Summit and Mayor's Forum's youngest speaker, Arlian shared how he is uniting and empowering future generations by collaborating with community groups, corporations, and government agencies to co-create a sustainable future. This is his mission.

Arlian is a passionate, inspiring young leader determined to help school students to become global citizens of change. His mother Karin Ecker, the professional filmmaker continues to support his mission with her expertise and ongoing advocacy for the ocean and waterways. She has been working in this space for 30 years and as a European filmmaker/advocate for the ocean has had the pleasure of filming underwater documentaries for TV internationally.

Sarina Hausler, Planet Angel

Sarina is an incredible 16 years old eco-entreprenur that owns an eco-business called Planet Angels. She is passionate about helping the environment and improving the world we live in.

At just 14 year of age, Sarina decided she wanted to make a difference but didn’t know where to start and felt like all the items that were eco-friendly, replacements for single use plastic or aimed at reducing waste were really expensive. And so, Planet Angels was born as she thought 'it shouldn’t be this hard or this expensive'!

She believes that "if we are going to have a positive impact on our planet, collectively we all need to make some fairly big and rapid changes. Knowing where to start and what to do can be overwhelming for most people."

Through social media and conversations with others, Sarina creates greater awareness of the issues our planet is facing right now. She has a passion to enable people to really talk about the problems we face and how we can win the war on waste and reduce our everyday plastic consumption.

Romy O'Donoghue, MGC Enviro Team

Romy is the senior school Environment Vice-Captain of the MGC Enviro Team at Melbourne Girls College, the school that made headlines last year with The National Parks Scheme where MGC went bin-free. Romy works alongside the other environment captains to coordinate the environment team and works on a whole host of sustainability projects. Outside of school, Romy is a School Strike for Climate Melbourne organiser, whose roles includes organising events like the September 15 strike in Melbourne. She has also been involved in the Australian Youth Climate Coalition and works alongside them in their campaigns.

Amplify our impact: You can do this by clicking "going" on the RSVP and share the Young Changemakers Facebook event listing with friends and family!