Merijn Tinga (Plastic Soup Surfer)
Merijn Tinga aka the Plastic Soup Surfer is known for his extraordinary and impactful campaigns around plastic pollution, focused on policymakers and company ceo’s.
The Plastic Soup Surfer forced the political breakthrough on bottle deposits in the Netherlands in 2017 with a self-written resolution. An accompanying petition was signed by 60thousand people and was kickstarted by kitesurfing across the North Sea on a surfboard made from small plastic bottles.
Using a bailiff and a judicial instrument he confronted Coca Cola, Heineken, Pepsico, Spa and Dutch supermarket CEO’s with the plastic bottles he had found in the river Rhine after having paddled it from Source to Sea (1000km).
Timmermans & Manifest
For the Dutch community of plastic activists and NGO’s he organizes national conferences on the future of plastics.
Company change
With the community of litter-pickers he launched several campaigns using our monitoring "Plastic Avengers" app in collaboration with Dirk 'Zwerfinator' Groot.
Vision
The Plastic Soup Surfer views plastic as the catalyst to ‘throw-away society’. A transition in the way we appreciate plastics, the designs and intended behavior is needed to fundamentally change plastic pollution. Efforts in recycling or cleaning-up divert the attention and slow down much needed measures promoting reuse and reduction.
Plastic Soup Surfer
The Plastic Soup Surfer is a small creative and flexible NGO. Merijn Tinga is often consulted by Dutch politicians and multinationals.
Plastic Soup Surfer is part of several International committees and groups (EU Break Free From Plastic coalition, Dutch SUP implementation committee, Dutch plastic fibres committee)
Merijn Tinga is a trained biologist and passionate surfer. He has 30k following on social media.
More info: PlasticSoupSurfer.org
