New Year Honours 2022: Teen sisters recognised for plastic campaign

Two teenagers who founded a campaign to reduce single-use plastic have been named in the New Year Honours.

Sisters Amy and Ella Meek, from Nottingham, are receiving British Empire Medals (BEM) for their voluntary service to the natural environment.

The pair, who founded Kids Against Plastic in 2016, previously won a Pride of Britain award.

Amy, 18, said the award "was very exciting and completely out of the blue".

Their efforts to reduce plastic pollution have been praised in Parliament and the sisters have also presented Newsround, Springwatch Live Academy and a TED talk.

Amy said they started Kids Against Plastic when she was 12 and her sister was 10.

"We were pretty young at the time so we started off by litter picking and set ourselves a goal of picking up 100,000 pieces of plastic litter," she said.

"We reached that total on Christmas Eve this year."

"From the litter-picking, we realised it was important to reduce plastic usage in the first place instead of trying to clean it all up.

"That is when we began other parts of our charity, such as the Plastic Clever initiative and the Kids Against Plastic club."

Plastic Clever, which started two years ago, encourages cafes, businesses, local councils, festivals, and schools to reduce their plastic usage in a manageable way, Amy said.

Ella, 16, said their campaigning was "more something for ourselves".

"To have the BEM, to win the Pride of Britain award and maybe meet the Queen seems so crazy to us," she said.

"Something we never thought would happen."

Also named among the honours was gold-medal winning Paralympic canoeist Charlotte Henshaw, from Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire.

Ms Henshaw, who won gold in the women's KL2 Para-canoe at Tokyo 2020, has been appointed MBE for services to canoeing.

Her victory saw her set a new Paralympic record time of 50.760 seconds as she finished ahead of fellow Brit and defending champion Emma Wiggs.

She had previously enjoyed a successful career in the pool, representing Great Britain in the 2008 Beijing, 2012 London and Rio 2016 Paralympics.

She won a silver medal in the SB6 breaststroke at the London games, followed by a bronze in Rio.

In late 2016, she retired from swimming to focus on Para-canoe, where she has seen wins at the World Championships, as well as her Paralympic gold.

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