A climate activist, environmental scientist, and ethical influencer originally from East Renfrewshire is looking ahead to helping shape important legislation after enjoying a string of recent successes.
Laura Young, known as Less Waste Laura, led a determined campaign to ban single-use vapes, which saw her win the Circular Champion Award in association with Zero Waste Scotland at the Holyrood Climate Awards towards the end of last year.
East Renfrewshire MSP Kirsten Oswald praised her for being an “unstoppable East Renner now living in Dundee” at the forefront of tackling the issues caused by the littering of these items.
Indeed, earlier this year to Laura’s delight, it was announced that the sale and supply of disposable vapes will be banned in England, Scotland and Wales, with the ban on the sale and supply of single-use vapes in Scotland due to come into effect on April 1, 2025.
Laura told the Barrhead News: “It’s been a huge campaign and we've obviously kind of won the campaign you could say because we've got the UK government who are going to change legislation and they're going ban them.
“This is phenomenal, but we've got about a year to actually build that legislation so the campaign is in a different phase now where we are working with policymakers to try and make sure that we get the best legislation possible, so that's a big chunk of my work.”
Laura, who grew up and lived in Newton Mearns, moved to Dundee when she began her PHD looking at community engagement and climate resilience around a year and a half ago.
She uses a variety of platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, X and Youtube to get across her messages about waste, climate and sustainability.
In March, she was named Scottish Influencer of the Year at the Radisson Red Hotel in Glasgow in recognition of her online campaigning on environmental and climate issues.
She described the achievement as “a huge moment for all those who use their social media for advocating for people and planet.”
“It was great to win the overall influencer award,” she added.
“If you think of what a traditional influencer is you wouldn't maybe think of an environmental scientist and campaigner, so it's quite nice that it was somebody a bit different.
“Since it was announced, there's a real buzz around the stuff that I do.
“Lots of workplaces have asked me to come and speak to them about sustainability or about my campaigning and that's just amazing because that's what my whole page is about - trying to encourage everyone of all levels to try and think about sustainability and environmental stuff."
The 27-year-old also has been involved this year with the BBC’s brand-new talent initiative, BBC Creator Lab, in collaboration with social media platform TikTok, which aims to to highlight and nurture the careers of young digital creative talent.
In February this allowed her to come together with some of the best and most creative nature content creators.
“The creator lab is 90 creators from across the UK and we're all broken into different sections on different themes," explained Laura.
“I'm in the nature one and we did a two-day crash course in all things tech and the BBC down at BBC Wales.
“We're all trying to do something because we want to improve nature, improve the environment and improve people's health to do with the environment, so it was great to learn a bit more about how to do it and be connected with all these amazing influencers and content creators from across across the UK."
To find out more about Laura and her work click HERE.
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