18 June 2025
01:07:44
Chris Hines
OVERVIEW:
Chris Hines, a long-time environmental activist and co-founder of Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), discussed his journey from surfing in Cornwall to leading campaigns against sewage pollution. He highlighted SAS's early successes, including a 1991 lobby at the Houses of Parliament that led to a £2 million research fund. Chris also shared his work at the Eden Project, where he implemented sustainable practices like the Triple Bottom Line. He emphasised the importance of community, resilience, and informed consumerism, advocating for ethical consumerism and repairing and reusing items. Hines also mentioned the impact of misinformation and the need for better environmental legislation. Actions Research and subscribe to the Ethical Consumer magazine to make more informed purchasing decisions. Slow down, travel less, and stay longer in destinations to reduce carbon emissions. Repair, reuse, and respect the possessions and resources you have. Engage in more conversations with people and build connections within your community. Outline Chris Environmental Journey and Early Surfing Experiences Curly Steve introduces Chris Hines, highlighting his extensive environmental activism and surfing background. Chris shares his early life in Plymouth, growing up near Dartmoor, and his love for the natural environment. Chris recounts his first experiences with surfing, starting with a wooden belly board and later owning a second-hand surfboard. He describes his favourite surfing spots in Cornwall, including Whitmouth, Polzeth, and Trigg Point. Formation of Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) Chris explains his transition from surfing to environmental activism, leading to the formation of SAS in 1990. He details the initial meeting in Porthtowan and St. Agnes, where the idea of SAS was born due to increasing pollution in the water. Chris describes the first public meeting in St. Agnes, which attracted over 200 people despite initial scepticism. Chris recounts the first public protest in the Houses of Parliament, which led to a £2 million research fund into the health effects of sewage-contaminated sea water. He discusses the impact of SAS's activism, including the introduction of the term "intelligent activism" to describe their strategic approach. Chris describes various tactics used by SAS, such as media campaigns, shareholder activism, and legal challenges to force water companies to improve their practices. He shares a memorable incident involving a 10-foot inflatable turd, which was used as a protest tool to draw attention to the issue. Chris explains the historical lack of sewage treatment works in the UK and the impact of Margaret Thatcher's statement that all sewage was treated before discharge. He describes the discovery of Jersey's effective sewage treatment system using ultraviolet light disinfection, which inspired SAS to advocate for similar solutions. Chris details the successful implementation of UV treatment in Durham and Welsh Water, which significantly improved water quality. He highlights the ongoing challenges faced by SAS, including the need for continued activism due to regressive legislation and funding cuts. Transitioned to the Eden Project and introduced Triple Bottom Line Thinking as Sustainability Director, where he implemented waste management and sustainability initiatives. He introduces the concept of the Triple Bottom Line, which balances economic, social, and environmental considerations in business practices. Chris shares an example of applying the Triple Bottom Line to the installation of a dishwasher at the Eden Project, which reduced landfill, created jobs, and improved the dining experience. He describes the impact of the Triple Bottom Line approach on various aspects of the Eden Project, including security and procurement. Establishment of A Grain of Sand Chris explains the establishment of A Grain of Sand, an organisation focused on helping individuals and organisations make a positive impact. He discusses the importance of community-based solutions and the role of small, agile organisations in driving change. Chris highlights various projects and initiatives supported by A Grain of Sand, including vinyl flooring recycling and sustainable surfboard manufacturing. He emphasises the need for collective action and the power of small, individual contributions to create a better future. Challenges and Future Directions Chris discusses the current state of environmental activism, including the need for stronger legislation and increased public awareness. He highlights the role of technology in both solving and exacerbating environmental issues, emphasising the importance of responsible use. Chris shares his thoughts on the future of environmental activism, including the potential for community-based solutions and the importance of resilience He concludes with a call to action, encouraging listeners to engage in conversations, support environmental initiatives, and work towards a more sustainable futureTOPICS
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chris Hines has spent decades challenging the status quo he's gone from battling raw sewage to advising national institutions all while finding time to be with nature and go surfing this is a story of resilience real change and why
one man still believes that we can do better i'm Curly Steve and we're searching for a greener room [Music] co-founder of Surfers Against Sewage former sustainability director at the Eden Project founder of A Grain of Sand and proud MBE holder which in his words stands for moaning bloody
environmentalist he's been campaigning for over 35 years always with humor honesty and sharpeyed pragmatism today we're diving into the power of protest the importance of communication and the character it takes to stay the course when knockbacks come hard and fast chris welcome to the show delighted to be here delighted that
you're here so let's just rewind can you tell me um where your environmental journey started and uh tell me a little bit about uh your where your surfing started as well um so I was born I'm 63 now um I was born in Plymouth grew up on the edge of Dartmore um went to a big comprehensive school there um but I was
always out in the natural environment i could just open the gate and walk out onto Dartmore um and my parents always used to encourage that they took us to the beach we had all of our holidays in Cornwall um when I was a kid so that kind of love of the natural environment was there very early my dad was kind of and mom were kind of keen on um natural history and lots of books around that kind of stuff um and then surfing we
used to holiday at places like Whidmouth and Sennon um never used to go far so that was kind of there so I had a wooden belly board when I was probably four or five years old and then actual surfboard I kind of borrowed my brother's when he I was I think I was 11 maybe 12 that's when I first took in and it was a big old 10 foot6 Bilbo beast and I kind of you know lugged it around and that's
where that kind of started and then I yeah when I was a year older than that I saved up and bought a 20 pound secondhand board and a old diving suit with old kind of beaver tail coming through um yeah that's where it all started excellent so your main surfing spots you started within Cornwall uh it would have been Whitmouth mhm um Paulth mhm pseth a very different place now
very different compared to what it was back then um but also places like Trigantal Trigantal Fort on the south um south coast in Witan Bay um and even places like Lou uh when that breaks very rarely um that kind those two areas really awesome so tell me um how you you spending time on Dartmore and spending time uh around in the ocean that's where your interest in the environment came in
yeah just a a kind of a love of it I guess if you're spending a lot of time with out in the natural environment you have a respect for it but also you gain an understanding of it and you do go "Wow this is amazing." And how lucky are we to be here how lucky am I am to be looking at all of this and I mean even things like I can remember it was
like I was still at primary school but I kind of got off the school bus and was walking home kind of through the two 300 yards of Edge of Dartmore bit to to the house and I there was like a six-legged horse but what that actually was was it was a a Dartmore pony giving birth oh wow and I just kind of ran home to my mom got my mom and we kind of like sat
kind of you know 50 yards away and I watched that happen mhm and that's quite a magical thing to see that really especially in nature yeah and and you know the little fo got up and wobbled around and stood and took its first kind of teetering steps so seeing things like that make you go "Wow." And make you want to learn more about it and
appreciate what it is what you're part of um yeah so that's where that kind of connection came from with the natural environment so you started surface against sewage around the 80s 1990 1990 so um what what in between um school and and 1990 what was happening for you then uh so I completely fluffed all my A levels um too busy going surfing and took completely the wrong subjects um so
but don't despair anybody out there your moment will come somewhere in life absolutely um but I'd been writing um some words and I sent there was a new surfing magazine had come out of surf magazine called Surf Scene um and I sent them this bit of fiction that I'd written about surfing and on the basis of that they said come down and um have an interview and then that summer I got to age 19 I got to go out and interview
Rabbit Bartholomew oh wow sean Thompson um Shane Haran and then turned those into little articles which were published and then that week uh that winter after that I was given a initial six week eight weeks of work um and then that became two years and I became assistant editor but I was living there wasn't enough money this is a measure of where surfing was there wasn't enough money to pay me enough to be able to
afford a vehicle and a place to live right so I had to live in my van for the first six months which I did um at kind of Ptown and and around it was very easy then because there weren't many people camping in vans and I had a kind of good network so that's what I did for six months and then I managed to afford a caravan they put me up by10 so I lived in a static caravan for about seven years then um and then so I did that for a couple of
years then I was a bricks laborer went to Australia went down did the classic Morocco trip went to Imwan when there was only 10 people in the water that was a crowded day um but then went did a year's working holiday in Australia and then came back in kind of 88 end of 88 um and then 89 and then 1990 we formed so what what was the catalyst there what
made you um what do you remember the day when you decided that you needed to do something it's 35 years ago pretty much to the day that we're doing this um so we had our first meeting behind closed doors um on the 26th of April who's we uh and that was a bunch probably about a dozen of us
in the P to Tower and St agnes surf community and we've been seeing kind of an increase in panty liners in condoms um we knew the sewage was bad um and I think the the presence of the panty liners made it really obvious so ironically this kind of plastic item um and we'd been seeing it quite a lot the year before and then that spring that that kind of end of winter early spring
there was varying a couple of people wanted to spray a bit of graffiti um someone had come up with the name Andrew Kingsley Tubs better known as an he come up with the name surface against sewage and SAS and the military kind of connotation of that um but so there was kind of something there was an angle about let's spray some graffiti do that and then there were a few of us who were going "No no no if we're going to do this we should do something a little bit more serious because that won't achieve
anything." So we called a meeting up at Min's house um Mindsy's mom's house and there was about a dozen people there and we committed to have our first public meeting two weeks later in St agnes in the kind of one of the village halls there um and that was held on the 10th of May 1990 um and we went to there i got the science brief and the health brief because my dad was a a doc
so I had to take that on um but we when we walked in there we'd had a little bit of coverage on Radio Cormal um and you couldn't get in there was over 200 people there people leaning in through the windows and we signed up members at two quid a hit we didn't really know why in fact we know we did we thought we might be able to afford a sewage treatment oh there you go but very rapidly we each Yeah for about two quid each but we quite quickly found out that
they were several million so that wasn't going to work at all um but yeah so off we went really that was and and very quickly so most of our campaigning that summer was in Cornwall but then you know once we'd put our hands up and our heads above the parapit everybody from around the UK you know started going "You think you've got it bad you know you come and have a look at this so we were surfing
in Campborn and Red Ruth sewage that's what we were surfing in the combined 5 million gallons of completely crude sewage every single day and and can I can I just stop you there the the the I remember those days and it literally was raw things in the sea you were swimming past tampons uh condoms um cigarette butts uh [ __ ]
the whole everything i mean back then there was a quote in 1989 um at the privatization of the water industry margaret Thatcher who was prime minister at the time stated and I quote all sewage is treated before discharge and she said that on BBC um the reality was 400 million gallons of completely crude sewage every single day from Nuki to Newcastle Brighton to Blackpool there were no sewage treatment works at all so
you know we're sat in Yuki now and there is a sewage treatment works and it gets bypassed when the storms kick in and everybody throws their hands up in horror back in 1990 there wasn't a sewage treatment works everybody who flushed their toilet in Yuki would literally discharge straight out of the end of of the headland and that was the same right around the coast of the UK it was a kind of national disgrace and our
tourist industry denied it they were playing the game as in the book and the film Jaws let's not tell anybody about the great white shark um because we'll scare off the tourists our problem was it wasn't great white it was great brown turd that was our problem and that was one of your um one of your images wasn't it of of the great big flu uh inflatable turd that you took out there yeah yeah we had a 10 foot inflatable turd we
never actually did even launch it in Yuki although everybody said that we did the counselors would always freak about it we never launched it but just the threat of launching it was was enough when we were chatting the other day we um Chris had just um shown a film and it had the the big turd there and I said "Oh I saw that in painting and and it was it was actually in painting that you had uh floated it out wasn't it?" And I
stood on the beach 35 years ago at that time which is uh quite a thing um so what what was the the process what was surfers against sewage doing to what did they start doing what um so that kind of first year I guess we just protested about it so we raised the profile that this was happening um we went to the houses of parliament within 10 months of forming um so in we formed in May 1990
in March 2000 uh in March 1991 we went to the houses of parliament we um had a lobby we were in our wet suits and gas masks and everything we pulled the secretary of state for the environment a guy called David Trippier that's equivalent of Steven Reid in today's currency um and we pulled him in front of camera in front of a Channel 4 documentary and other news channels um and the Labour and Lib Dem spokesman as
well for the environment and the day we got there the the minister David Trippier announced 2 million pound spend on research into the health effects of bathing in sewage contaminated seawater so even though we didn't know what we were doing and it was scary as hell the very act of stepping forward helped trigger that that piece of research for sure because this kind of activism had never happened before um definitely not in surfing um and and I think this was I
kind of refer to it um as intelligent activism and you know activism to make change happen you can't be an activist just for the sake of being an activist i I don't I don't get that that's there you know we wanted to win that was what we we wanted clean seas that was our aim we just wanted to be able to go enjoy the sea for the wonderful thing that it is and which isn't too much to ask no that's not um
but we kind of quite rapidly worked out that just protesting that's the easy bit really we don't want this shout so we had to kind of So we knew our aim clean seas we knew the problem 400 million gallons of cruise sewage how do you create that pre all those multiple pressure points for change and you know in over that period of time we we did politics we did the media really well you know one of our members even used to
write scripts for BBC casualty so there was a 15inute BBC casualty went out they couldn't say the word surface against our story our sweatshirts our t-shirts amazing you know 14 million viewers on a Saturday night we did science we had our mouths um sucked and our veins sucked proving that surface three times more likely to contract hepatitis A than the general public we bought shares in every
water company that gave us the right to go um to their annual general meetings and challenged them um how did that how did that go oh they they loathed us yeah for sure uh and a very there was there was a brilliant one in Brighton where we wanted to so we own shares in in Southern Water and we myself and a guy called Andrew Coleman Coleman Tim Mining we used to was his nickname um we had a
toilet seat that we wanted to award to the chairman uh to put around his neck for being the shittiest water company in the UK and we got him pinned down in the AGM afterwards and we were running all the way around and everybody gone off to the reception after the annual general meeting and he was trying to get out but we were kind of running around with the media to all the different entrances and
they eventually kind of smuggled him out but but the the key thing was was we we did used to affect share prices you know we used to be consulted by people like BBC Breakfast News Business Section and appear on there as to which water companies were a risk and which ones were kind of leaning into doing the right things you were everywhere we were yeah i I mean SAS is is a collective tribe um and at that time you
know this was kind of pre- internet pretty much really um so but we would go anywhere in the UK if we knew there was a pressure point to be applied and and pushed on we would go anywhere in the UK within 24 hours whether that be media or a kind of a demonstration or a council meeting or whatever we would go and we would you know just chuck the turd in
the car the inflatable turd gas masks wet seats and that allows you to protest because the picture and the one you referenced the one taken in in Paintton that is enough to convey the message you don't have to have mass rallies and you can condense the story into one image really strongly and then with the science or whatever it is that you do um
we also work with a brilliant law company Lee Deenko um one of the kind of leading environmental and social lawyers in the UK law firms and we successfully judicially reviewed one of the Cornish councils at the time um with two brilliant um young women Sarah and Rachel and we judicially reviewed the council and set case precedent for the whole of the UK what does that mean so the coun so we knew that there were
panty liners and condoms all over Port Tower and Beach we used to call Paul Tamples tampon just for the record um and we went to the council and said we look here's section 79E of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 it says that if there's an accumulation or deposit prejuditial to health or a nuisance you shall no question issue an abatement notice to stop against the offender in this case Southwest Water okay so we asked the council to do that
and they basically turned around and went "Go to hell you're a bunch of surfers we don't need to take any notice of you so with Sarah and Rachel as the two plaintiffs and who it was in their name the case we went to the Royal Courts of Justice in London we judicially reviewed and the judge said to South uh two Carrick District Council "No you shall issue the abatement notice you're in law you're wrong." And then that applied to all the councils all the
way around the UK because it had never been tested we did the test with Sarah and Rachel and Lee Denko and then that meant every council had to make the water companies at least apply even a basic screen which then makes them build sewage treatment works which triggers on we also had to go and find a solution shall I just keep Yeah keep going keep going so so the water
companies at the time as well they wanted to build long sea outfalls this was their solution to everything just pump it further out to sea um but what that meant was that the the things that actually that they were testing for um called fecal colafforms and total they daff rapidly in salt water a matter of hours possibly a couple of days hepatitis A can do a 100 days in salt water especially if it's like wrapped up
in a nice nugget of fatty poo it you know the you the natural UV and the salt can't get to it right so an absence of these indicator organisms was no guarantee that the water was clean so we had to find the solution to this like that was done and we looked high and low and there were some water companies were starting to do a little bit but Jersey was the real standout one and they'd not built a long sea outfall they put in
this thing called ultraviolet light disinfection like harnessed sunlight so primary secondary treatment and then zap it with UV tubes and then the bacterial count in their outfall pipe was 50 times cleaner than the than the government standard for a past beach so I was I was called up to um London to give evidence to um parliament in front of a select committee um and they asked me about
this and I said you know they they said how confident are you my response was based on the bacterial count in Jerseyy's outfall pipe compared to beaches such as you know P tampon or you know Fistl or wherever I would feel 50 times safer sticking my head up Jerseys outfall pipe than I would bathing on those beaches wow a week after I made that statement the island of Jersey went phoned us up and they went this would make really good marketing material for
us so over I went and I duck dived into the mouth of 100,000 people's sewage and I got about a meter up the pipe before I was blown back out with a force but I stam what I said look tasted and smelt cleaner than the beaches that we were bathing on and it was 9 million pounds cheaper than building the long sea outfall so as well as that being fantastic marketing for for the Channel Islands it was also fantastic marketing
for surfers against sewage yeah and we'd found the solution and that's a hard thing to go off and find and that um that helped change the whole way that the water company their whole massive capital investment program you know hundreds of millions of pounds were going to be spent doing something and they wanted to just pump it further out to sea and we changed that we were part of the the crew who helped change that
you know there were the manufacturers and the researchers and then Dur Camry Welsh Water were the first water comp water company to adopt a full sewage treatment works with UV for everything and they abandoned Long Sea outfalls and we cut the ribbon at their first UV treatment works and it's surface against sewage's name on that brass plaque that's incredible that's uh some great work and so that
kept you busy for how long how long were you with surface against sewage i was there for 10 years and that was that was intelligent um conversation and activism and more and more and more and that just kept you busy for 10 years and they're obviously still going now after 35 years and still doing some great work yeah i mean I I it's amazing that SAS are there it's sad that they still got to be there but SAS will always have to be there
there's always going to be people trying to kind of mess with our oceans and our marine environment and you know it's an incredible thing that um what started out as as such a almost you know we didn't even think we would make six months and here we are 35 years later sadly the water companies have gone you know backwards 14 years of kind of very weak legislation and very weak um
monitoring and things 50% cut to the Environment Agency funding mhm the water company's gone backwards and is it a different problem now than it was then or is it the same problem it's they're basically bypassing the sewage treatment works so at times there's completely crude sewage being discharged again which is just unacceptable you know they if they'd kept doing if they'd kept
building on the basis that they had so these first time sewage treatment works were built everywhere so every city and town and village went from having no sewage treatment works to having a sewage treatment works at a high level of treatment and then everybody just took their foot off the gas they took their eye off the ball um and the water companies literally looked around and went "No one's watching." And they undid their belts they pulled their trousers
down and they started pooping in the sea again yeah and so the uh what are your thoughts on um shareholder uh dividends and things like that is this is this a problem that Yeah I mean what happened then was that I
mean most of the money that has been paid has gone out out of the country so it you know our water companies are owned by I can't like Mccari there's a company um in Australia that owns large chunks and so the money has been paid in dividends and it's gone it's not even in the UK anymore you know when the water companies were first privatized all the money did go to shareholders in the UK
through pension funds so a lot of people's pension funds will be um invested in things like water companies and other utilities as well because they're they're fairly uh fairly safe aren't they yeah they're safe bets you know people are all people have got no choice it's a monopoly you have to pay for your water and you there's only one water company so it's guaranteed level of income but yeah I mean we've seen shocking
levels of um shareholder payouts and I mean the salaries are just eye watering aren't they for not doing a very good job yeah yeah so what do you think what's next um well there is currently a commission uh on water on the water industry and sewage contamination of our seas and rivers um hopefully that will drive some positive change i know SAS have been you
know I was with Jars a couple of days ago who's the new chief exec of um Surface Against Sewage and yeah they're they're pressing a lot of the right buttons and they're being listened to there's a lot of public outrage at it so it feels like the water companies should be the whipping you know they need to take a cut here they they need to be whether or not they reationalize them i don't know i don't
know the economics of that deeply enough um but I think if I was Steve Reid the Secretary of State for the Environment I'd pick off the worst two water companies and I'd reationalize them and then that would send out like a very clear indicator to the others as you either you know you either change your your ways or you'll be next and I
think it needs a major major overhaul and probably it needs to go back into kind of like a community interest company interestingly and and I know they're still not the best water company um necessarily they're still a water company but Dur Camry Welsh Water is a not for-p profofit it's owned by the people of Wales it's a community interest company that makes sense to me yeah so why can't we have that for
Southwest why can't we have that for Southern and all the other water companies cuz there's too much money in it at the moment yeah but those are changes that probably need to happen yeah interesting so moving on you then went to uh to Eden yeah i I took a year out and recharged batteries and things
for sure i bet yeah i bet 10 years of of of that was exhausting yeah you you it's hard graph because you you you know you're there to do a good job and you know that was kind of the 12 14 of us against 10 private water companies and government and all those other things and
and looking after what was it 18,000 18,000 members 18,000 paid up members yeah we were completely independently funded We weren't a charity at the time um and we did I did find it recently cuz someone challenged me about that but I did find the letter we wrote to the charities commission saying "Can we be a charity?" And they went "You're way too political." Yeah the charitable laws have changed so that's kind of allowed SAS to become a charity now and they can
still have that age but so that So you were run entirely by uh member contributions member contributions t-shirts sweatshirts um a couple of um good donations from the industry uh and the ball you know those are always fun yeah those are always good fun and it's great to see Service Against Series 35th anniversary ball this year i bought my tickets there
you go i've bought mine so yeah yeah yeah yeah good on you yeah i wasn't going to take any complimentary ones so fair play fair play oh good on you so tell me about um so you had a little uh a little break and then you went to Eden tell me about that so Eden behind the scenes so Eden when it opened was lovely shiny you know here we are we're this sustainable environmental project but behind the scenes they hadn't got any waste management facilities whatsoever
so I designed the kind of this concept waste neutral um and then on a Friday afternoon so whilst I was designing that and kind of trying to build the infrastructure behind it I'd put on my dirty jeans and go out and get covered in bin juice and sort all the recycling into things and then we built this system there but I was there as sustainability director trying to encourage them to do more of the right thing and and build
relationships out into that kind of wider world but specifically around waste um and the materials that we do um and you introduced the uh triple bottle triple bottom line bottom line the triple bottom line yeah so triple bottom line john Elkington one of my absolute heroes and someone I'm very privileged to call a friend um and I first met John so John wrote the first green consumer guide back in 1987 and in about 92 he
coined this phrase triple bottom line thinking um and I'd met him he wrote another book called Holidays That Don't Cost the Earth and he asked me to the book launch of that uh which was in a Turkish bath in London and I had to put my wets suit on in a Turkish bath and I was just dripping it was so hot um but I did that kind of and that's where I met John and he had this phrase triple bottom line thinking this concept and
that's you know we've lived in a world where we just make money and that's the only bottom line anybody's interested in but you have to take into account to run a successful business um you have to take into account the econ the economic you have to be profitable and make some money and keep viable in that way but you also have to have your social and environmental elements as well and the best example that we did at the Eden project of triple bottom line thinking
was we put in a dishwasher so when I first went to Eden um every single plates uh fork cup etc all was single use they were brown they looked eco but it was just a con they were going straight to landfill one use and we looked at the triple bottom line of putting in a dishwasher with crockery and cutlery and environmentally we reduced our landfill by eight tons a
year we reduced um the material and carbon impact of manufacturing and transportation to us socially we created two jobs because someone had to load the dishwasher um people got a nicer cup of tea because it was in a China cup absolutely and we didn't see it coming but on the day we launched we suddenly started selling loads of salad because people could put it on it wasn't on a wobbly plate so they could have so diet
went up as well and then economically we sold more tea we sold more salad and we saved ourselves about 149,000 over a 5year time frame isn't that just a a superb message and a and a great metaphor for how we can all be a little bit better with something so simple as just a a dishwasher solve is an SEO and web design agency that builds highquality sustainable websites and strategies to help businesses grow online they're also
BCorp meaning they're a business for good making a positive impact while driving real results as a special offer for our listeners Solve is offering a free website audit and consultation just mention searching for a greener room to claim yours so uh so how did you roll that out uh to to the other areas the other
aspects of the Eden project so we did half-day workshops for all of the 650 staff and you had to be there um you weren't allowed not to go to those workshops and we ended up at one point or other I can remember the kind of security team kind of very much arms crossed going what's this got to do with us and then a couple of months later they were buying a new set of radios for
doing the security Eden and they said can you pop down to the security office and come and see us and they' done the triple bottom line analysis of buying a new set of radios and they were very pleased because they'd got an extra two channels on the radios which allowed them to be looking after people better there was a dedicated emergency channel um and environmentally they'd got a more uh the batteries could be better at
recharging and the they at the end of the life of that system the company would take the whole lot back and it was a little bit more expensive about £1,000 on a £30,000 expenditure but on the basis of that they got the go-ahad from the finance director and that showed me that you can apply that kind of thinking to whatever it is that you do and it's just taking that balance of of things
you know making it count in all areas yeah awesome awesome so um so Eden came to an end for me yeah and that was was that when you started A Grain of Sand yeah I I did a couple of years just as myself but I didn't quite I didn't like being called Chris Hines right or whatever you call that that kind of so I I called it a grain of sand
and that's it is me pretty much um but I'll go and work with lots of people anyone who wants to really um and it's about you know a grain of sand small irritating but out comes the old pearl in relation to an oyster it's also that kind of collective of there's millions of grains of sand on the beach and there's millions billions of us and if we all make a little difference that
builds up and counts to a big difference definitely um and again you can be quite agile as a grain of sand as well you can go where you need to go so what's what's the sort of purpose of a grain of sand um to work with organizations and individuals who want to make a difference who want to try and kind of go down that line of delivering a more positive future i
think one of our biggest challenges that we face is that we haven't we don't sell the vision enough we don't go this is our world over here i mean we're talking on a day where we've just had a like a big change in terms of our politics reality is is you know only 17% of the people in Runorn actually voted for reform um so that's tiny really that's only 17% that isn't true democracy which
was a brilliant album by Steel Pulse um but it's about how we can kind of make those changes and we collectively if I can so I mean I do all kinds of talks to all kinds of people last week I chaired um I did a talk and hosted the awards for a vinyl flooring
recycling scheme that has 66 different outlets across the UK where you may anybody who is up is taking out old vinyl flooring can take it back to that company and it all gets recycled and there was someone there from the European Commission and they were saying you know this is amazing this is a brilliant leading project you know and they've done seven and a half thous0 thousand tons of vinyl floor recycling and I think that these are all going on
all at the same time that's vinyl flooring which sounds like that's boring what's that you know service against sewage well it's lovely and sexy and everything and fun and engaging and vinyl flooring pretty boring but those guys are doing guys and girls are doing really good things and that's there in every single sector yeah for sure and there's this brilliant project that's just been launched by um the Guardian called the 89% project and I heard of
this research about a year year and a half ago and there was the research showed they interviewed 130,000 people from over a 100 countries around the world 89% of all people interviewed said that climate change was a real issue really important and the number one and they wanted their governments to do more about it 85% said they would gladly spend 1% or
more on taxation to address climate crisis but they all thought they were in the minority and so if that's just that so the this project that's been launched by the Guardian called the 89% project and I've just had 89 the logo sprayed on my new eco surfboard that's just been made um by biota this one's a cord but it's a
it's a it's going to have a sustainable surf gold logo so it's a polyo poly old blank eco sap resin i think I might even be able to get fins made that filled with sheep's wool this is what we're chasing anyway but like I no love James and James Otter um but so but the 89% project is about making people understand metaphorically we are the 89%
so the strongest thing that we can all do is go I am one of the 89% and that applies I think across the board to 89% of us do want a positive future we do want people respected we do want our planet respected um and in the words of Joe Cox the MP we all have more in common than divides us and it feels at times like some of the more divisive
social media and all of that is just wedging us apart but if you put us all you know on the beach together as a 100,000 people or a million grains of sand we would all go "Yeah yeah yeah we'll actually we'll have a slice of that good life." Well that was the strength of of surface against sewage wasn't it the amount of people you had as a community saying the same thing yeah and everybody else going
"Yeah they're right aren't they?" You know of course we don't want to bathe in sewage what do you think the uh the biggest social or environmental challenge for us is right now [Music] um misinformation and disinformation absolutely so we're being told which kind of comes off what I was just saying then about the 89% project we're being told that this isn't the case and that
we can't have the solutions and that we can't deliver that better world where and you know the reality is is there going to be a little bit of pain the pain is going to be for the super rich and they don't want to let go of course they don't and there's too there's too many people interested to to keep them going yes but it's not you know I mean I I'm staggered that we we don't tax and in fact there's even a a campaign isn't
there millionaires for more tax or something where people are saying "No do tax us we're the we're the super rich we want to be you know taxed this this myth that we can't do it and and we need to make that equitable and there was a you know there's a staggering one I we've just let everything run away from us and no one needs to earn a thousand
times or 269 times what anybody else earns you can't spend that money no how many pairs of jeans do you need to put on yeah yeah yeah and so I was at um I was in London earlier this week um at a conference and um there was lots of politicians there there was lots of big business there there was uh and um they were talking millions billions trillions it was all about the money it was an environmental
conference um and people were saying the right things people were saying things that you sat there and went "Yes this is good." and then you look at their credentials behind and it's not quite so good so how do you how do you how do you know someone's telling the truth how do you know what you're reading is the truth how do you know what you're reading from a scientist hasn't isn't
the scientist isn't being paid by fact check do you know check dig dig in find out who they are find out you know I mean we do we we can you can go in and do that it's a bit more work than believing Brian on faceache you know and that's where a load of people get their kind of media from and there was a brilliant one a friend of of mine um Dave and I were
doing a bit of work on the house and we had put some scaffolding up and about during that time someone asked me something and and they said "Oh no I've read this." And and I said "Well yeah but the MHI doesn't say that." And I live in a village called Mount Hawk between Mount Hawk and Pors Tower and this person completely changed their opinion because I told them something and it was complete lie i told I just invented something and said "But the MHI
say that." And they went "Oh crikey." And I said "You haven't even asked me what the MHI is." And they said "It's the Mount Hall it's the Mount Hawk Institute institute." So this was just my mate Dave and me up the scaffold and they just went "Oh no." And I said "Yeah but you don't you know who are these people check out who they are if you if someone publishes something go and find the website and then look at about and if you can't find anything that says
about and gives you the history of who those people are and where they qualified and what they're then don't believe it we can do that it it's like it it's really okay to do so and again I mean there's some brilliant sources of information out there you know the best £36 that anybody can spend is the subscription to Ethical Consumer
okay tell us about that so Ethical Consumer Magazine has been going for a long time now and they do lookup tables for and if you sub if you subscribe you can log on and go to all of their databases historically and it'll tell you everything from your bar of chocolate to your bank to your pension to the dishwasher you buy everything and it gives you a ranking table and they ask about 10 different questions across the the broad sustainability agenda you
know from environmental impact to child labor to you know investments in arm companies etc and you know we can't all necessarily afford to go right to the top and do the right thing in all of those but we can all lift ourselves up from the bottom and start to move up those tables and that's then we're all doing this little bit more sustainable life and that then encourages those companies because the good companies get
a bit more money coming into them we buy their products um or or services which then displaces from the others i mean you know there's a bank at the bottom of the list called Barclays and they were the bank of apartheite and they are the bank of climate change they are the bank of climate change yeah they're the biggest investors they're you know last time I looked on ethical
consumer right there at the bottom was Barclays yeah so we can just move up or but and the thing that will happen is Barclays you know well they haven't shown any major signs of wanting to change since their apartheite funding days um but if we move our money away from them and it is our money absolutely you know we all have this opportunity um in our lives we all have a certain
amount of expenditure and it's hard and I know you know to a certain extent you could say oh that's like a comfy middle class thing to thing to say but we can make little bits of difference we can and again you know look after the things that we have you know repair shops i just dropped my wets suit over at Body Line for another repair
well we should all we you know we should have we should go back to companies that repair and create the skills and the jobs and and we don't need to own a television all televisions used to be rented through companies called radio rentals on high streets so none of us own televisions we watch television but the company would we pay them a monthly fee and they would look
after our television and then they would take it away and you know probably repair we've been conned into the fact that we have to own a new television and even that the television's made obsolete changes the dynamic of a company if you just were renting yeah absolutely this this is something that's being talked about more and more at the moment is how this can how this can be rolled out and how it can happen isn't it
i was talking to um Matt Bar from Looking Sideways who does other podcasts and he he's done that one the announcement which is fantastic yeah brilliant bit of journalism and in there he says you know this this capitalism hasn't always been the way it's like there could be another way that we live you know runaway mass consumer-based capitalism doesn't have to be the model and probably when we
look back in a you know hundred years time it won't be we will have we will have worked our way through this and when I kind of do talks I I often start with a picture of my always start with a picture of my grand and granddad 102 years ago on their wedding day and I say in the 1.9 billion people living on the face of the planet then um there's is 8.2 now and if
you showed them the world in which we live it would scare the hell out of them for sure they wouldn't be able to you know computers what we're doing now all of this technology our transport systems everything they'd be completely freaked out if you dropped us into the future by 100 years we'd be completely freaked out and some of the solutions that will have been put in place will be to questions that we won't even have answered yet in
n something like 1992 one of SAS's members rang up one of our members rang up and said "I bought sas.org.uk for you." And we put the phone down and went "What what the hell does that mean what was he saying what's he on about?" And that's how quickly time moves so that leads me really nicely on to the next question um about technology yeah and you know everyone's
going on about AI and you know social media and and are we doing too much technology is technology helping us is it hindering us what are your thoughts on that um a lot of our solutions will come from technology um but way we just haven't got our relationship sorted out with it you know we all spend way too much time on our phones and not talking to each other absolutely yeah you know um and you know
there was a woman on the the TV on the radio today talking about how she head teacher for a school and and you know she's literally they lock up all the phones you're allowed to carry your phone around but you can't access it for six hours in the day and her pupils who first of all go "This is awful we must have the phone." They're now thanking her for giving them six hours of pressure off where you can talk to people you can study you can read you
can you know go for a walk there isn't that constant pressure and it we just haven't learned how what our relationship is with this kind of thing and one of the other things you know we need to understand like how to use stuff so you know AI is a classic example if we want to learn how to if we if I want to look up a recipe to cook say I don't know fish pasta or something then my best bet is
to go is to you know search for it on a search engine and just go I'll either go probably you know BBC food or Jamie Oliver whatever that's my most direct route if I ask AI the same question it'll search the whole web and come back with the same recipe as either of those other websites but the carbon footprint would have been about 200 times for sure yeah so that's just not understanding
how there's times when we want to go and ask AI how to do really important things you know and AI for doing things like scanning for skin cancer or things like that amazing application and it will solve loads of those problems but it's a tool for us and we need to make sure that the right people are in charge of the tool set that's one of our big challenges so so what about resilience you've
obviously come up against some uh some pretty uh pretty big kickback over the years uh you've upset some people um in the right direction but that must be quite draining how have you coped with uh with that kind of sort of um Yeah i mean there used to be it used to be said that I you know nick money from SAS oh
right um and I had a big yacht in the Canaries and used to drive around in a big fat BMW car right and my response to that was have a good look in the mirror because you're just putting your values on me i don't do that i And so but I I mean I how people deal with the social media kick of it now I don't know i never had that so I wouldn't get that it was kind of rumors and things like that and um
but we do need to switch off from it and you have to have good friends around you good family if you're lucky enough to have a good family around you and that's about being you know respectful being part of your community how much how much of it is community an awful lot and and I think our future the way that we will be will be more community- based where
we learn you know the word love again and that you know loving our planet loving and respecting each other irrespective of the color of our skin or where we come from or our beliefs you know we're okay in this world so I think those bits are really really important and that allows you to have some form of resilience and also speaking truth for
other people as well if you hear something that's you know a maliciously gossipy r challenge it yeah i did this really strongly recently for a friend of mine i heard some awful things being said and I stepped in because you you need to don't go with the flow because it's the easiest option absolutely stand true absolutely so what gives you hope Chris
um going surfing absolutely going uh walking on Dartmore again you know like if you want to recharge your batteries um and time I think time you know I plant trees every year and I was saying this when I was closing this conference a week ago there's a brilliant um Greek proverb and it says "A society
becomes great when old men plant trees in whose shade they'll never sit." Yeah and metaphorically speaking that's what we have to do we have to go off and build this future and create that and what gives me hope is going to things like this you know the science park that I went to and did a talk for them on Earth Day and seeing all these people with new companies and new you
know pushing people with bringing the genius of them and their energy to it and they're learning and then going you know the vinyl flooring recycling awards you know something that you never even knew existed but makes you go "Wow." And you know that in every sector there's people doing brilliant things and we just need to kind of make sure that all those stories all those grains of sand
are being told and that we understand that we are the 89% we do you know the the the one or 2% who are supporting the 11% are trying to tell us the 89% that we don't we're not here we are here you and I are sitting here now yeah yeah with Alex backing us up doing you know on a Friday afternoon
having a with the sunshin sunshining and a little bit of revolutionary chat you know and revolution could be peaceful it doesn't have to be violent it we're more intelligent well that's we use every tool that has been used to create this mad crazy version of the world in which we live and we use them for the right and we do that with all of our our belief we got the right on our
side we have to do that yeah that's right that's beautiful thank you Chris that's a absolute pleasure um next up we have got your top tips okay so what we're going to do we're going to have a bit of fun here alex has got the bell over there okay you've got a minute to talk about each of these top tips and are you ready
Alex he's uh just setting his stopwatch there okay are you ready Chris yeah if I can come in under one minute what happens uh you get a bell okay if you can't you get a bell okay okay lovely do we need to get prizes maybe we'll get prizes maybe I'll get you a bar of chocolate oh I had one so the first one here we go do your carbon print uh footprint know your
impact yeah so carbon footprint a lot of people diss carbon footprints and say "Ah that was just a ploy by BP and the oil industry to put the guilt on us." Not true it was invented the first time it was ever said was on BBC Food um but if we know our carbon footprint then it we know where it comes from we can go "Oh it does come from these companies." And it's a it's empowering so that allows us to then make decisions as to who we buy where we consume our products
from because we ask them what the carbon footprint is um and I was even looking for someone about flights you know you can if you need a fly I try to fly as little as possible um but you can see now they're going "This flight is 12% less carbon than the other." So we can make those decisions around our carbon footprint knowledge is power perfect that was that was almost sort of
you've been practicing haven't you you've been at home rehearsing no number two subscribe to Ethical Consumer get informed and vote with your wallet yes so I mentioned Ethical Consumer before £36 a year for subscription you can then look into um anything on their database and you know
if if you earn £25,000 a year let's say and you work for 40 years that's a million pounds so there's £3 million just sitting in this room just the three of us so that starts to be a lot of power and it's not that you spend all of that ethically but you can start to spend some of it ethically and that's leaning into that space the power is in our pocket and the more you do the more you
do I guess absolutely and the more you do the more options become available to you because you're you're encouraging those good companies to come through we've beaten the bell how about that how about travel less stay longer slow down and lower your emissions so the travel less stay longer is a quote from when all of the travel and carbon footprint came through um they asked this of there
was a joint statement from the editors and owners of Lonely Planet and Rough Guide and they came up with that statement travel less stay longer um don't do these short flights everywhere um and what was the second bit of it oh slow down yeah generally slow down you know we can all slow down just slow down our consumption just stop and breathe um
appreciate what it is that you're eating or where you are you know you don't have to get up and go and do something else immediately you'll feel better you pro Go on carry on probably have a better life there you go so uh one of my favorite facts is that uh is that the slower animals last long uh live longer and I think that's a
beautiful thing that's a a great metaphor for life look after stuff repair reuse and respect what you have okay so absolutely buy it so that it can be repaired so ask you know when you buy something can that be repaired um if and at the end of its life can it therefore be recycled and we don't need you know we're incredibly lucky to be able to
what we have you know we were talking earlier we only have one surfboard when we were young like now you see you know some people they're kind of aged like you know 15 or 18 and they're going I've got my you know shortboard and my longboard and my other quiver and you know you're incredibly lucky to have that you can only surf one at a time only surf one at a time make it a kind of what general thing but appreciate how
lucky we are to have that and we are the lucky ones absolutely we got a roof over our heads we'll be warm and we'll eat well tonight absolutely good timing this last one I love this one love people connection drives action so we do it we are connected to each other we're humans we're the social animal you know we've got this ability to speak and hear and see and
communicate and it's it allows us you know if we meet someone we've never and we needed water and we walked into a village on somewhere on the planet the person will probably give you water and some food and look after you even though you couldn't speak a word and if we love people and respect and try and understand everybody else's community we'll realize that we do all 8.2 two billion of us live on this small little spinning uh globe and every one of us
our futures and our well-being is completely linked with that of everybody else that's an incredible thing isn't it incredible so next up Chris we're going to look at uh your bits of evidence and um the first one you've got once again you've got a minute okay okay don't go over no I'm The first one that you co you've given
us is the green consumer guide okay so this was the John Elkington publication um and it was published I think in 1987 and it was a bit of a kind of a blueprint you could look up what the impact of what you were buying and that what you therefore can do with your wallet and he was challenged when he first did it he was legally challenged by McDonald's um and he had to go and get legal advice and he basically
fronted it out with them um but yeah it it those green consumer guide and tools like it how do we spend our money and it is our money we can be green consumers absolutely and and that's uh there's Yeah there's quite a few books out now quite similar to that isn't there excellent the next one I'm interested about this
one this is tickling sharks so criy this sounds like a a John Elkington fan club um tickling sharks is in fact probably Green Consumer Guide has been subsumed by Ethical Consumer um but Tickling Sharks is his life story and it's just a great read of how just an ordinary person goes into some of the
biggest boardrooms and biggest areas of influence with that spirit and he's still laughing and he wants the next 15 years he he wants to be around for he's 75 now wants to be around for the next 15 years because he reckons there going to be more change some of it not necessarily for good in the next 10 years than his entire rest of his career and it's just a joy and he's a very
mischievous fun man he's Yeah he's a joy and it's a great book excellent have a look out for that one the next one we've got is the House of Commons Select uh Committee Report on Sewage 1997 to 1998 so this is a report that we were called to go and give um oral evidence so we submitted written evidence and then on the basis of that we as service against sewage were asked to go and give evidence so we put suit and tie on went
sat in front of the the select committee up in London um and when it came out we were one of only 12 organizations we were the only non-governmental organization giving evidence and when I picked up the press embargoed copy in White Hall the day before it was published I opened it up to the conclusion and it stated that all sewage should be treated to tertiary levels at all times in all places and I literally was whooping down the street i stopped
the G member of the general public and went had to read it to someone because I was on my own i went "This is brilliant read this." Amazing and that shows what a bunch of kind of determined you know tribe of determined people can do we can do the right thing that's awesome incredible uh this is um John Elkington
for triple bottom line thinking and systems change so I guess we've already done that yeah yeah no we've done John this is you being a This is you being a super fan yeah so I was blasting through my notes there wasn't So you pulled this from the notes yes yes absolutely so the last one we've got is uh the big C team yeah aaron and the current SAS
crew yeah the Big C and what they've done in relation to where our wets suits come from um you know tell us about that so our wets suits are made of a generally of a a material called neoprene don't believe it neo is just a word to make it sound like new nice it's chloroprene chlorine that's what it's made of and it
causes cancer uh the the cancer levels of the people who live around and they are generally black Americans in South America in South USA and it's 50 times the levels of cancer um than the rest of America in the air it's just being discharged into the air yeah and that's kind of where our wets suits the material that our wets suits have been made of and there is an
alternative it's called ULEX or other natural rubbers and there is an alternative to this and the guys uh Lewis Chris and Demi have done this amazing job of making this amazing film The Big Sea and are out touring with it and there's a great quote from I think it's the marketing director of Excel that says "The film that changed an industry." Yeah yeah I understand that i haven't actually seen the film did you went last last week to see i seen it
before I was away last week but I've seen it a couple of times yeah i was due to go and see it but unfortunately I couldn't but I'm looking forward to seeing that definitely and then um just just oh and the surface I was going to say this is important let's let's have a minute for them so you know the team of people who get up every day and go and work for surfers against sewage all the volunteers all the people who've ever
supported it whether it be paying their two pounds membership paddling doing anymore it's probably not now um but all of those people who just believe that we could make a difference and the amazing team who are there now uh continuing that fight to protect our oceans to make sure that you know that those who want to pollute it are held to account and challenged you know if they weren't
there it would be a lot easier for those polluters so even though it might feel like it's a hell of a game and a hell of a challenge we're do you know SAS are doing a great job yeah absolutely absolutely chris brilliant tell us where we can find you uh and a grain of sand so AOS
www.agos.co okay that's my um website needs updating drastically um and my email is chrisagos.co perfect perfect thank you so Oh one more question before we go if we could do one thing today to make a better tomorrow what would it be engage people in conversations just talk to people um I
had one of just as I was leaving to come here i drove the car down the track and and I know it's really dusty from our house and I went really slowly and there was this guy walking down there and I could have just gone woof and left him in a cloud of dust but I went really slowly and then as I crept past him I went I'm just driving slowly just so I don't engulf you in a cloud of dust and he went right on mate and I'd never met
him before but we can do that in all aspects of our life talk to someone on a train or a train station or you know it's we can be the communic let's be human again yeah absolutely let's have some love and respect and laughs and engagement that's a beautiful thing Chris thank you so much for coming on the show thank you so much for inviting me great pleasure to uh to have uh royalty in the in the
house today no it's been a real pleasure thank you well we didn't talk about just just very quickly before we finish up you have uh you have um given an MBE by the queen there won't you and uh tell me tell me about this yeah so I kind I'm not a royalist and so the first thing I did was to ask my very very good friend Solomon uh I said you know what do you reckon I should take this or not um and
so Solomon's of Jamaican descent and he went that's not your battle here Chris take it and go and do bloody good with it use it like kick but for me it stands for moaning bloody environmentalist and and you know I got that because of the amazing team it's on behalf of the team and everybody from surface against sewage it's kind of SAS that got given you know it should be s on the end moaning bloody environmentalists
well you're a moaning bloody environmentalist that's done a hell of a good job of it so uh once again thank you for everything you've done with surface against sewage Thank you for everything you've done for the planet and uh thank you for coming on this afternoon thank you that's it for this episode of Searching for a Green Room we'd love to hear your thoughts let us know what you think who you'd like to hear from any topics you want us to
cover drop us a comment don't forget to like and subscribe so you never miss an episode see you next time
The Chat
The Guest: Chris Hines
Campaigner, Environmentalist, Co-founder of Surfers Against Sewage
Former Sustainability Director at the Eden Project
Founder of A Grain of Sand
MBE (Moaning Bloody Environmentalist)
The Chat
Roots in Nature and Surf
Chris grew up on the edge of Dartmoor, with a childhood shaped by wild spaces and sea air. His early love of nature and surfing laid the foundation for a life spent challenging pollution and pushing for better.
The Birth of Surfers Against Sewage
Fed up with swimming through raw sewage and sanitary waste, Chris and a dozen others started Surfers Against Sewage in 1990. They went from graffiti plans to packed town hall meetings and ten-foot inflatable turds, all the way to Parliament within a year. The goal was simple: clean seas.
Activism That Works
Chris shares how SAS combined science, legal action, shareholder activism, and media pressure. From mouth swabs to share buys, they left no angle untouched. They forced systemic change, pushed UV disinfection to the top of the agenda, and challenged government claims head-on.
From Protest to Policy
Judicial reviews, select committees, and national media—Chris lays out how SAS moved beyond protest into powerful systems change. At one point, their work even caused share price shifts in major water companies.
From SAS to Eden Project
After a decade of campaigning, Chris joined the Eden Project, taking waste from an afterthought to a sustainability blueprint. He introduced triple bottom line thinking and brought dishwashers, proper crockery, and less landfill to the table.
A Grain of Sand
His current work helps organisations build meaningful change, however small. Whether it’s speaking at vinyl flooring awards or pushing for non-toxic wetsuits, Chris sees every action as a contribution to a wider, collective shift.
Community, Truth, and Resilience
Chris reflects on misinformation, the importance of local conversations, and the power of knowing your own values. He advocates for a slower, more thoughtful life—and plants trees he’ll never sit under.
Chris’s Top Achievable Tips
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Know your carbon footprint
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Subscribe to Ethical Consumer
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Travel less, stay longer
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Slow down
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Repair and reuse
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Love people, connection drives action
Chris’s Evidence
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The Green Consumer Guide by John Elkington
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Tickling Sharks (John Elkington’s life story)
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House of Commons Select Committee Report on Sewage (1997–1998)
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Triple bottom line thinking
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The Big Sea film and wetsuit campaign
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Ongoing work of Surfers Against Sewage
What One Thing Can We Do Today to Make a Better Tomorrow?
Talk to each other. Be human again. Engage with strangers. Communicate kindly. Connection leads to action.
Contact Details
Website: www.agos.co
Email: [email protected]
