Meet Nicolina Pappas, 13, the Illinois teenager whose campaign against single-use plastic reached 14 US cities, secured 14 official proclamations and raised over $15,000 for conservation

Nicolina Pappas, the 13-year-old single-use plastic campaigner from Rock Island, Illinois, is fighting plastic pollution through her company, Nicolina’s Turtle Co., and her Skip the Plastic Campaign. The campaign has reached 14 cities in the United States and secured 14 official proclamations, while the company has raised more than $15,000 for conservation. Her efforts earned second place, alongside winners from Kenya and India, in the age group for children aged eight to 13 at the 2025 International Young Eco-Hero Awards. Those awards recognise young people aged eight to 16 who take practical action against climate change, pollution and wildlife loss.How Nicolina Pappas turned her concern for sea turtles into handmade straw pouches and a movementNicolina has been an environmental advocate since she was eight years old. Her compassion for sea turtles, which are hurt by plastic straws, led her to design and sew small pouches that she sold alongside metal straws. That modest idea evolved into a movement that now influences policy at local and state level.Five years of fundraising and public speaking have carried her small business to non-profit statusMoney raised over the past five years goes through local organisations to pay for river cleanups, conservation camp scholarships and classroom outreach. Nicolina also teaches in person, having spoken to roughly 3,500 students and adults at summits, conferences, classrooms and city councils. Her company recently achieved non-profit status, extending its reach and impact.A setback over her straw ban led Nicolina to a just-ask approach that won support for less plasticJoel Vanderbush, Curator of Conservation and Education at Niabi Zoo and Nicolina’s mentor, told Action For Nature he has never met a child her age so driven and motivated to change the environment. He explained that her first proposal to her city council, a ban on plastic straws, faced setbacks, so she pivoted to a “just ask” policy, which brought a mayoral proclamation.Her most recent project, the Skip the Plastic Campaign, follows the same principle. It asks restaurants to provide plastic items only on request and invites customers to politely decline them. There is no mandate, a choice rooted in Nicolina’s understanding of environmental justice and the financial burden that bans can place on underserved communities.From city councils to state lawmakers, her resolutions made April 1 Skip the Plastic Day in IllinoisThe campaign’s proclamations cover more than 250,000 residents across Illinois and Iowa, yet Nicolina did not stop at the city level. She authored state resolutions that made April 1 Skip the Plastic Day across Illinois, and she testified before both the state House and the Senate.Nicolina told Action For Nature, the San Francisco non-profit behind the awards, that she has learned she can achieve much more by recruiting partners and asking for advice than by doing everything on her own. She now wants to take the Skip the Plastic Campaign to other states and eventually to the federal level, and she hopes to become a marine biologist or a lawyer.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.