Eight-year-old eco warrior triplets have launched a campaign to help the homeless this Christmas, as well as helping to save the planet.

Indigo, Harry and Lottie Van Beers, who live in Ashwell, started their own YouTube channel earlier this year to encourage people to think about their actions and make small changes to collectively help save the planet.

The trio has now launched The Great Big Crisp Packet Campaign to encourage people to collect crisp packets and turn them into blankets for people who are homeless, or to organise a community collection of crisp packets and send them to recycling company TerraCycle to be turned into benches.

Lottie said: “Did you know that there is a crisp packet crisis going on out there?

“Walkers make 11 million crisp packets every day. They can’t yet be recycled from home and so many packets end up on our beaches and in our oceans. The packets are then eaten by our fish, seals, dolphins and other wildlife. They then die a slow and painful death. We think this is not good enough, and whilst the crisp makers keep making these packets, our planet and our wildlife is really suffering.”

One crisp packet can take up to 80 years to decompose.

Harry said: “It’s a really big problem and it’s very scary. Us kids need to do something about it and that’s why we have started The Great Big Crisp Packet Campaign.”

They want as many children as possible to join their campaign across the country. Indigo said: “We want to show that kids really can make a difference, and take action to make a change. We need your help. The more of us who join, the bigger the difference we can make.”

The triplets also want to build enough of a following to be able to hold the main crisp manufacturers to account, asking them to commit to when they will be able to use recyclable packets.

Harry said: “We may like their crisps, but we don’t like their packets. If you get involved with this campaign we can really change things. Help save our planet.”

For more information, including instructions on how to make a blanket out of crisp packets coming soon, visit The Eco Trips YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGi1N0ArwJ6lp8UKFVLdSrg