Minderoo forecasts plastic rain in daily weather reports

Kept out of UN negotiations for the world's first plastic treaty, Minderoo Foundation needed the Paris talks to end with real commitments — and plastic lobbyists were drowning out the science.

Attach plastic pollution to the one thing people check daily — the weather — and report 'plastic rain' in kilograms.

A live web app combined Minderoo's atmospheric-plastic research with real-time weather data, reporting each day's 'plastic rain' in kilograms; TV weather presenter Chloé Nabédian fronted it, and French news networks ran the forecast inside their daily weather reports during the talks.

More than 2,350 media mentions and 1.3 billion reach in under two weeks; the UN co-signed the initiative on World Environment Day; 30 countries made new production-reduction commitments as the first plastic treaty was drafted.

When world leaders gathered in Paris in May 2023 to negotiate the first global plastic treaty, Minderoo Foundation was not allowed in the room. Facing well-funded plastic lobbyists, the foundation needed a way to make accelerating plastic pollution impossible to ignore — not just for delegates, but for the public whose pressure could shape the outcome.

M&C Saatchi Australia attached the problem to the weather. The Plastic Forecast combined Minderoo's research on plastic particles in the atmosphere with real-time weather data to publish a daily estimate of 'plastic rain' in kilograms — a live forecast Parisians could check like any other forecast. French TV weather presenter Chloé Nabédian fronted the launch, and news networks carried the plastic forecast inside their daily weather reports for the whole week of the talks.

The idea treated pollution as a weather event, not an activist argument. Weather-activated outdoor ads, data-driven targeting around UNESCO, and real-time context on France's biggest weather sites put the forecast everywhere delegates looked. The UN itself co-signed the initiative on World Environment Day, and the campaign reached more than 1.3 billion people with over 2,350 media mentions in under two weeks.

The Plastic Forecast won a Yellow Pencil at the 62nd D&AD Awards in the PR – Public Affairs category in 2024, and the format was designed to scale to any city, keeping the daily weight of inaction visible as treaty talks moved on.

Plastic pollution is invisible in daily life, while the weather is the one shared daily ritual everyone checks.

Borrowing the trust of a familiar format — weather presenters, news segments — made the science feel credible rather than activist.

Real-time data made the issue local and personal: Parisians could see kilograms of plastic falling on their own city.

Launching inside the UN negotiation window gave the idea an event to attach to and a concrete outcome to pressure.

Take an invisible, abstract crisis and attach it to the most trusted, most-checked format people already use — the daily weather report — so the problem becomes concrete and impossible to ignore.

The forecast format was built to travel: the same science can be applied to any city as treaty talks continue. The campaign's 2024 D&AD Yellow Pencil (PR – Public Affairs) came alongside LIA recognition for creative use of data, and the M&C Saatchi case page remains the reference for how an environmental NGO borrowed the weather report as a persuasion format.