Follow Flossie as she becomes part of the biggest climate protest movement in Irish history and travels to one of the world’s most polluted rivers to see what she can learn.
My Story: Flossie the Beach Cleaner tells how one schoolgirl’s concern about plastic pollution grew to become a strong voice in Ireland’s climate action protest movement.
The two-part documentary follows Flossie from her work as a beach cleaner on a Dublin beach and lone protests outside the Dáil to becoming part of a growing network of children whose voices have put climate change squarely on the political agenda.
We see Flossie cleaning the beach near her home, fishing plastic waste out of the water and finding weird bits of rubbish on the rocks. She meets fellow activists along the way and explains to her friends why she cares so much about the natural world. By the end of the first part of the documentary Flossie is addressing thousands of school children on Ireland’s largest climate strike.
The second part of the documentary follows Flossie to Indonesia where she meets the extraordinary women, children and soldiers trying to clean the world’s most plastic-polluted river. She meets children who are working to protect Indonesia’s Citarum River, women who are trying to save the natural world for their children, and an inspiring environmentalist who believes that working with nature and each other is the way forward.
Flossie returns to Ireland with renewed respect for people all over the world who are taking up the same fight as Irish children to protect our environment from greed, destruction and pollution.
Episode 1: Tuesday 12th November, 3.15 pm RTÉ2
We meet Flossie as she explains her unusual hobby. She loves football, cats and rabbits. But she also loves cleaning beaches. Her lone school strike outside Dáil Eireann becomes part of a larger movement and by the end of the episode she is addressing Ireland’s biggest school strike for climate and planning a trip to Indonesia to visit the world’s most polluted river.
Episode 2: Thursday 14th November, 3:15 pm RTÉ2
In Indonesia Flossie visits a market which has gone from being plastic free to having a plastic pollution problem. She meets women in the city of Bandung doing the same kind of cleanup work she does at home in Ireland. She visits an inspiring school where children learn by being in nature and visits an environmentalist using plants to clean and protect the Citarum River. She sees the huge effort the Indonesian military have had to put in to get the river back to its natural state.