A six-part docuseries raises awareness of extreme poverty, inequality, and sustainability issues to mobilize global citizens to take action and drive meaningful and lasting change.
The “ACTIVATE: The Global Citizen Movement” by Procter and Gamble and National Geographic is co-produced by Global Citizen and RadicalMedia.
Each episode delves into a different issue connected to the root causes of extreme poverty, including sustainable sourcing, criminalization of poverty, disaster relief, girls’ education, plastic waste, and the global water crisis.
Procter and Gamble Philippines premieres the fifth episode in the country on October 4. The “ACTIVATE: Ending Plastic Pollution” episode shows the critical role of multi-sectoral collaboration to start solving the complex problem of solid waste, where all must play their part and the active participation of all citizens is vital.
In this episode, Global Citizen ambassadors and advocates Pharrell Williams and Darren Criss push for governments, corporations, and individuals to step up and do their role in solving the ocean plastic waste problem.
Shot in different cities in the Philippines, Criss travels and witnesses first-hand the impact of plastic waste on people living in poverty and calls on global citizens to urge their mayors to commit their cities to zero-waste future.
Experts describe the impact of plastic pollution on people in developing countries and the ways different stakeholders can work together to solve the problem.
For its part, P&G has already taken a step in addressing the growing beach plastic waste. Head & Shoulders, the leading anti-dandruff shampoo, has created shampoo bottles made with post-consumer resins to reduce its eco-footprint. Since 2017, the brand has manufactured over 1 million bottles with recycled beach plastic.
Safeguard, meanwhile, is ditching plastic overwraps used for its bar soap multi-packs to use recycled paper board cartons. The company said this packaging change will reduce up to 8,500 kilometers worth of plastic packaging waste—approximately 1,000 times the length of Boracay island.
P&G and long-time partner World Vision Philippines are executing the second phase of “Pag-Asa sa Basura,” a school-based plastic collection program aimed at educating students and families, incentivizing their efforts, and executing proper plastic waste collection. To date, nearly half a million sachets and almost 150,000 bottles have been collected under the program.
The ACTIVATE Partnership is a shared commitment National Geographic, P&G, and Global Citizen have made to leverage their collective influence, audience, and scale to raise wide awareness and inspire everyone to take action. It also illustrates experimentation with new content and distribution models, and new ways to mobilize viewers across the world.
ACTIVATE episode 5 will premiere in the Philippines on National Geographic on Oct. 4, Friday at 9:00 p.m.
