"You go, Glenn Coco".
Any Mean Girls fan will recognise the phrase but thanks to two Canberra school students it may take on a new meaning.
Canberra Girls Grammar School's Eliza Coggan and Nicola Duncan have set up Plastic Free For Freyja, a small business that sells alternatives to plastic in two different sized packs (both named after the 2004 teen comedy) - the You Go Glen Coco expert pack and the So Fetch starter pack.
Each has a variety of plastic alternatives including bamboo coffee cups, reusable produce bags, string carry bags and even washable makeup wipes.
But not only do these packs go to help the planet, all profits going to local girl Freyja Christiansen who was diagnosed with clear cell sarcoma, a rare type of cancer, in 2017. The seven-year-old has been going through treatment ever since.
"We based the company around Freyja and we asked her what we wanted to do for her," Eliza says.
"Make-A-Wish contacted her and ask her what she wanted, and she didn't want to meet a Disney princess, she just wanted people to put away their rubbish, which is so great. So we wanted to help people stop making rubbish.
"Freyja's really professional and she knows all the stuff about the environment and she gave us so much advice."
It all started with a school assignment that required the two students to come up with a project that worked within the United Nations Sustainability Goals. Rather than produce a report for the class, Eliza and Nicola wanted to do something proactive.
And so the research began - not only into finding out what products most people would need to replace, but also finding ethical small businesses within Australia that could provide them.
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"We didn't want to go on eBay because it would totally go against everything," Nicola says.
"We really wanted to make sure they were local and they were small businesses. We didn't want anything from major corporations. We also checked into chemicals. In bamboo mugs there can be chemical that is really common but this particular one doesn't have it."
When it came to finding an alternative for a plastic straw, the budding entrepreneurs even took into account media reports of accidents occurring with metal ones and opted for a silicone option instead.
But Plastic Free For Freyja is not just a small business. It also aims to educate people about the environment with their website hosting information about different brands which costumers can go to continue their plastic-free journey.
"It's really daunting all of the facts that you hear and you can be stuck as to where to start and it can be overwhelming so people ignore the issue," Nicola says.
Elisa adds: "I think, as individuals, we can't make a huge change but just starting with these products and slowly phasing things out, that's always good".
- For more information about Plastic Free For Freyja go to plasticfreeforfreyja.weebly.com.
- For more information about Freyja or to donate go to acureforfreyja.com.
