A seven-year-old schoolboy has made Holyrood history as he became the youngest person to present a petition to the Scottish parliament, in his attempt to provide every child in the country with a reusable water bottle.
Callum Isted was questioned by MSPs at Wednesday’s citizen participation and petitions committee, where he explained that he originally campaigned to provide all pupils at Dedridge primary in Livingston, where he goes to school, with reusable water bottles to replace the single-use plastic bottles they were given on a weekly basis.
The primary 3 pupil, who told the committee his favourite subject at school was “definitely maths”, said he raised £1,405.66 by completing the John Muir Way. “I felt very surprised that I had raised so much money. I earned so much money that I was also able to get some [bottles] for the adults in the school,” he said.
He added that he now wanted the Scottish parliament to buy a bottle for everyone.
The boy, who was joined at Holyrood by his parents, told the committee: “I wanted to go to Nicola Sturgeon’s house to talk about the bottles but my mum said it wasn’t allowed so we looked online and found the petitions.”
He is expected to meet the first minister later on Wednesday.
Callum, who took his campaign to the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow last November, raised concerns about the littering of single-use bottles as well as the danger that microplastics pose to animals and fish. He also noted that broken taps in his school could make it difficult for pupils to refill their bottles.
The convener Jackson Carlaw thanked the boy for his evidence and assured him: “We’re going to take the petition forward and after you meet with the first minister we’ll be asking her to honour whatever commitments you can get and see what we can do to put your petition into practice.”
• This article was amended on 10 March 2022 because an earlier version misspelled Livingston as “Livingstone”.
