Zero Co founder Mike Smith builds giant plastic waste pyramid in Egypt ahead of COP27 climate talks

An Australian man has spent three days camped on top of a giant pyramid of rubbish in Egypt to highlight the environmental problem posed by single-use plastics.

The 10m high, 12m wide waste pyramid is made of one million plastic bottles scooped up from Egypt’s famous Nile River.

The pyramid was built in the Egyptian desert over five days by Aussie zero waste company Zero Co, environmental group VeryNile and Egyptian artist Bahia Shehab on the eve of the COP27 climate talks in Egypt.

Zero Co founder Mike Smith camped on top of the pyramid, which contains 18,000kg of plastic waste, to raise awareness about single-use plastics and to launch 100yr Cleanup, a plan to host large rubbish clean-ups around the world over the next 100 years.

Mr Smith hopes the waste pyramid stunt* will encourage individuals and businesses to sponsor bundles of rubbish to fund the 100yr Cleanup project.

“We want to put the plastic problem on the environmental agenda*,” Mr Smith said. “We know we can’t do this alone, so we need to get everyone involved.

“By working together with businesses, industry leaders and inviting the public to take direct action, we’ll be able to build a scalable* solution to the problem and have a huge impact.”

Zero Co, which is campaigning* to stop single-use plastic production and turns this waste into environmentally friendly packaging, aims to raise $1 million for the 100yr Cleanup project over the next year, resulting in the removal of 15 million water bottles worth of rubbish.

An underwater clean-up in Australia and a clean-up in the Himalayas, “the roof of the world”, are among the project’s targets for next year.

The waste pyramid was built as leaders from 125 nations prepared to gather in Egypt for the 27th Conference of the Parties, or COP27. The two-week climate change summit*, run by the United Nations, started on November 6.

The UN’s World Meteorological Organisation launched its annual State of the Global Climate report on the first day of the summit, painting an alarming picture of global warming.

The report found Earth’s warming weather and rising seas were getting worse and doing so faster than at any other time since record keeping began.

“The latest State of the Global Climate report is a chronicle* of climate chaos,” warned United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres.

“We must answer the planet’s distress signal with action: ambitious*, credible climate action.”

The report found that sea level rise in the past decade was double what it was in the 1990s, and since January 2020 had jumped at a higher rate than that. Since the decade began, seas have been rising at 5mm a year, compared to 2.1mm a year in the 1990s.

The report also found the past eight years had been the warmest on record.

It found that concentrations* of the three main greenhouse gases* – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – reached record highs in 2021.

These gases trap solar radiation* and warm the Earth’s surface. Higher temperatures are linked to more and increasingly severe droughts, intense rainfall, floods and storms, according to climate scientists working for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

GLOSSARY

• stunt: something interesting that is done to attract attention
• agenda: a list of topics or items that have to be discussed
• scalable: able to grow or be made larger as required
• campaigning: working in an organised way to achieve a particular goal
• summit: a meeting between government leaders and representatives
• chronicle: a written record of historical events
• ambitious: having a strong desire for success and to aim high
• credible: able to be believed and trusted
• concentrations: the amounts of something in a particular area
• greenhouse gases: harmful gases that cause the planet to warm
• solar radiation: the energy and light that comes from the sun

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QUICK QUIZ

1. How many plastic bottles have been used to make the pyramid?
2. Where were these bottles found?
3. For what two purposes did Mike Smith camp on the top of the plastic waste pyramid?
4. What is the name of the climate change summit happening in Egypt?
5. How did UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres describe the latest State of the Global Climate report?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. 100 year clean-up
What can the youth of today do to help the environmental crisis and the rubbish made from single-use plastics? List 10 things below that you or your family could do to help this cause;

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Time: allow 25 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, HASS, Personal and social, Critical and Creative thinking

2. Extension
What sort of rubbish do you think would be most commonly found in an underwater clean-up in Australia and on top of the Himalayan mountains? What sort of user groups would be mainly responsible for this do you think?

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, HASS, Personal and social, Critical and Creative thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Read this!
A headline on an article – or a title on your text – should capture the attention of the audience, telling them to read this now. So choosing the perfect words for a headline or title is very important.

Create three new headlines for the events that took place in this article. Remember, what you write and how you write it will set the pace for the whole text, so make sure it matches.

Read out your headlines to a partner and discuss what the article will be about based on the headline you created. Discuss the tone and mood you set in just your few, short words. Does it do the article justice? Will it capture the audience’s attention the way you hoped? Would you want to read more?

Consider how a headline or title is similar to using short, sharp sentences throughout your text. They can be just as important as complex ones. Go through the last text you wrote and highlight any short, sharp sentences that capture the audience.