Hidden Plastics Co-founder
Ambassador & Wisdom Council United Kingdom
Zara Hawkins (13) lives in the UK and co-founded Hidden Plastic with her brother Ashton during the Ocean Heroes Virtual Bootcamp in 2020. They designed their campaign to educate people about the dangers of microplastics (and ocean bound plastic) through a series of ‘dark comedy’ videos, that are now archived on their website HiddenPlastic.org. Her main roles are scriptwriting, acting, social media communications and public speaking.
Zara & Asthon are currently working on the ‘PepsiCo Interceptor Challenge’ to encourage PepsiCo to sponsor 20 of The Ocean Cleanup Interceptors at a cost of $15.5m. They just started giving public talks about their work with Hidden Plastic, and doing face-to-face campaigning to encourage the public to help with their campaign. They have released a new video almost every Friday since Earth Day 2022 on social media – and plan to keep going until they get a response from PepsiCo.
Zara’s main interests include learning about plant-based nutrition, sustainable textiles, plastic material alternatives, sustainable agriculture, and climate change. All these interests have led her to the recent discovery of SEAWEED as a solution to all these issues. Zara just became the youngest ambassador for the Safe Seaweed Coalition, and will use her Hidden Plastic platform to help spread the word about the virtues of seaweed and further her own research (hopefully much scuba diving will be included!).