I love it when one of my whacky ideas come to life. Let’s sit on a toilet with our knickers down in the highstreet in Essex and outside Kings College, that’ll get some attention. And attention we got!

On a freezing cold November day we bared (nearly all) on a toilet to raise awareness of only flushing the #3Ps – poo, paper and pee, ‘cos plastic’s don’t belong in the sea! And with over 85,000 views on facebook word is getting out.

#BogStandard is a campaign we’ve been running at City to Sea since 2016. With 8% of plastic on UK beaches coming from our bathrooms*, more people need to know the toilet’s not a bin. Hands up, I was a flusher. I watched my Mum flush, I followed suit. (The only time I ever saw my Grandad angry when when he was knee deep in shit unblocking our drains. So I never flushed cotton wool, that was a no go … but tampons? For some reason they were different and down they went.) I had no idea they were made up of plastic …

As you’ll see from the video we had a lot of fun! It was great to be able to do this on my home place of Essex. Coming up with the concept and sitting on the loo wasn’t my only role. I came up with the the Toilet Times – The Illustrated Poo News designing it on Photoshop.

Harry came up with the name (genius!), we had some fascinating stories in there … Some of which I wrote, and then the word wizz who is Natalie Fee made sense of my ramblings. I edited the video along with a work experience girl, though for this camera man James Light filmed, which was fantastic you can see.

I got to share the joy of getting our knickers down with the wonderful Jasmin Tribe. City to Sea’s campaigns coordinator (who pulled my bright idea together into a proper plan!) and coordinator of Shark Fest.

We ‘ad a laugh! It’s good to raise a smile at the same time as raising awareness.

Working with Anglian Water and some amazing volunteers, our stickers have gone up in 1000s of toilets across the region. So more people will see while they’re having a wee!

I wore #CharityShopChic for the occasion, those coats, love then! Aomething I’m starting to show more on my insta account.

Remember – only flush poo, paper and pee, ‘cos plastic’s don’t belong in the sea!

 

*Marine Conservation Society 2018