A single plastic straw. That's how our campaign began. On being handed one in a local cafe, Bianca decided to start the Final Straw Solent campaign and quickly enlisted the help of Giles and Lissie. That final unnecessary straw kicked off our campaign to reduce the amount of single-use plastics used in our area by businesses and individuals alike, in an attempt to minimise the flow of plastic into our local seas. We love our community and beautiful coastline. Lately it has been blighted by an incredible amount of plastic waste, washed up on our shores and in the areas next to them. So much of it is single-use plastic, discarded thoughtlessly or that has escaped bins and made its way into our local waterways and sea.

Our goal is to encourage local businesses, schools, events and individuals to reduce the amount of single-use plastic they use each day. An easy start is plastic straws, but we are not stopping there. We aim to encourage everyone in the Solent area think about how much plastic they use, to reduce it wherever possible and to make sure that any they do use is disposed of correctly to ensure it doesn't make its way into our waterways, rivers, seas and oceans.

We need your help. We want to be able to:

- grow our schools outreach programme, talking to children at a grass-roots level, encouraging them to understand the issue and make ecologically-friendly choices when it comes to plastic.

- continue and grow our links with other environmental initiatives that focus on reducing plastic waste, working together to help make even more positive changes in our area.

- enlist more businesses, events and festivals to the campaign.

- work to more links with local councils, waste management companies and more to be able to provide advice and pointers to local businesses who want to reduce their plastic waste.

- continue to run regular beach cleans along the South Coast, highlighting the issue of plastic along our coastline and it's impact on our local wildlife.

So far we have been donating all of our time and energy on the campaign on a voluntary basis, and paying for many of our materials ourselves. Unfortunately, our pockets are not endless and we really need some financial help to be able to continue to spread the word. We need to invest in more publicity materials, schools outreach materials and campaign expenses.

If you can donate a pound or ten pounds to help keep the campaign running that would be awesome - it all makes a difference. We are always waiting for 'someone' to deal with issues like this. We have decided as a community that enough is enough and we want to be the 'someone', if we all make small steps and commitments we can make a massive difference.

Thank you!