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2008 Pryor Legacy Project
A Day Without a Disposable Bag
Mission
Our goal is to raise environmental awareness by reducing disposable bag usage through reusable bag initiatives, awareness projects, and education in order to promote habit change in the Kansas City area.
Action
While building relationships with local environmental agencies and organizations, we will draft a resolution instituting an annual day of recognition for “A Day Without a Disposable Bag”. Our three main goals are community initiatives, awareness and education, and our project contains several components that will help us achieve these goals:
· Environmental education programs offered at local elementary schools. These programs are to be designed and presented by one of our committees. We plan to visit 20 classrooms, educating 500 students.
· Participation in Kansas City EarthFest, on 4/19/08. This large Earth Day celebration will be attended by all major environmental organizations in Kansas City and provides an opportunity to increase public awareness of our cause.
· “A Day without a Disposable Bag” is the culmination of our education and awareness efforts, and will take place at retail locations across the city. At these locations, we will distribute reusable bags and educational literature. Currently, this day is also scheduled for 4/19/08. We plan to distribute 10,000 bags at 10 sites.
Public Benefit
This project will enhance the lives of the citizens of our great city by promoting an atmosphere of knowledge and action, setting an example for other cities. These individual changes promote cultural changes which in turn will promote much needed political change. The reduction of disposable bag usage in our city will significantly reduce the use of petroleum for synthesis of said bags, as well as reduce bag-related littering in our streets. This seemingly small step will prove to be a significant model that the rest of the country would do well to emulate.
Legacy
In our efforts to ensure this project leaves a continual legacy of environmental awareness in Kansas City, we are taking several measures. By working to create a city-wide resolution to have an annual “Day Without a Disposable Bag,” we will be ensuring the relevance and importance of this project. We are also working to create strategic relationships with local environmental organizations, so that we can pass on the project after its creators graduate.
Fast Facts
According to the Wall Street Journal, over 100 billion plastic shopping bags are used annually in the U.S, requiring 12 million barrels of oil for their production. -www.reusablebags.com
If each American household used just one reusable bag per grocery shopping trip, we would save 10 billion plastic bags and enough petroleum to fuel 50,000 cars for a year. -The Today Show 1/25/08
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