Research shows that children who receive even a little environmental education will influence their peers(7) and parents(8) to stop littering.(9) Basil Pather believes visits to the Beachwood Mangroves Nature Reserve by local schoolchildren have caused a reduction in the volume of plastic cascading into the mangrove reserve from villages upstream. “Once you get to the kids, we are making a difference,” he says. “Kids will reprimand their parents. They sheepishly listen to the kids.”

Old Habits Die Hard: For Grace Makopa, a student at Witwatersrand University in South Africa, litter is a source of anxiety because she’s used to creating it. “Everything now is suddenly environmentally friendly, while I come from a place where environmental health is not a big deal,” says Makopa, who’s from a working-class township. “You grow up and learn that ‘OK, I can just throw something out [on the ground]’. It becomes a part of you in a way.”