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Student Groups Come Together to Ban Plastic Bags
updated: Jan 10, 2012, 5:08 PM

Source: UCSB

Student groups at UCSB including the Associated Students Coastal Fund, Environmental Affairs Board, Isla Vista Surfrider Foundation and CalPirg, have banded together with campus administration and the Plastic Pollution Coalition to make a profound impact on the campus community and the City of Santa Barbara. Compelled by the goal to ban single use plastic bags and raise awareness of the detrimental affects of plastics on our environment, the students have created a new partnership on campus named the UCSB-Plastic Pollution Coalition (UCSB-PPC).

The global Plastic Pollution Coalition (PPC) is an alliance of individuals, organizations and businesses working together to stop plastic pollution and reduce its toxic impacts on humans,animals and the environment. The UCSB-PPC is participating in the global PPC's "Plastic-Free Campuses" project as the pilot school. The goal of the project is to encourage more universities to reduce their plastic consumption by educating their fellow students, raising awareness in the campus community and actively engaging students in campus policy.

Alyssa Hall, a core member of the UCSB-PPC, described the importance of the campaign that "We live in one of the most exceptional places in the world. We go to one of the most exceptional schools in the world. Shouldn't our policies around single use plastic be exceptional as well? We can do better than single use plastics and the UCSB - Plastic Pollution Coalition has unified our campus around eliminating this wasteful practice."

The week of January 9 - January 13 marks the kickoff of the campaign and will include such displays as dumping a single days worth of plastic collected in the center of campus, the installation of a sculpture made completely of plastic found on local beaches, and a press conference.

In conjunction with UCSB-PPC's campaign, UCSB Reads, which hands out over 3,000 free books to students every year, has chosen a book focused on the theme of marine plastic pollution. Moby Duck, by Donovan Hohn, discusses a spill of plastic ducks into the Pacific Ocean in the 1990s and the hunt to find them on local beaches. These organizations have joined forces to bring even more campus support to the campaign.

Upcoming events for the UCSB-PPC include the author Donovan Hohn coming to campus to discuss his book, "a day without a bag" where they will be giving out free re-usable bags, a re-usable item vendor faire on the UCSB campus. Students organizers will continue to collect signatures on campus with the goal to make an impact to City Council and the campus to be plastic bag free!

For more information on the PPC and upcoming events, email ucsbppc@gmail.com. ###

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Comments in order of when they were received | (reverse order)

COMMENT 247662P	2012-01-10 05:33 PM
Well done, student groups. It is your future and your children's future that you will be protecting.
COMMENT 247664P	2012-01-10 06:01 PM
Great! Hope the SB City Council puts the question on the June ballot!
TAZ	2012-01-10 06:22 PM
Yay students!! Totally support you...
COMMENT 247679P	2012-01-10 07:08 PM
Tell these students to stop trashing IV first.
ARTEMISIA	2012-01-10 07:42 PM
At last Saturday's Farmer's Market there were several young people promoting "paper nor plastic." Is this part of the same initiative? We almost never take new bags but keep our FM plastic bags and use them over and over, not putting them into recycling until they get full of holes or slime. A reasonable compromise, I think.
COMMENT 247700P	2012-01-10 08:26 PM
247679P - I doubt very much that the students involved in this activity (anti-trash) would be involved in trashing Isla Vista. In fact, they are setting an example.
BONKERS	2012-01-10 10:40 PM
The students at the Farmers' Market on Saturday were 5th and 6th graders from Washington Elementary. They were appalled by a video they watched in September about how badly plastic bags have littered our earth and caused problems for marine life. They were inspired to start their own campaign to try to get Santa Barbara to ban single use plastic bags. You can check out their website here: http://www.papernorplastic.org/Home.html
COMMENT 247728	2012-01-11 07:25 AM
Well done.... when the grown ups fail to act grown up it's the kids' job to show 'em how it's done.
COMMENT 247743P	2012-01-11 07:53 AM
Here's a thought. If these are elementary school students, here's an excellent clean-up-the-city project that would have immediate impact: clean up around Franklin School. All the streets there, Mason, Soledad, Wilson are littered with bags (paper, hard plastic, eg, cheetos, and rubbish.) It would provide a needed service and provide an example and maybe an impetus to other students. It's notable that around the Franklin Center/Library, there's no rubbish, but around the school...!
COMMENT 247794	2012-01-11 09:41 AM
From my cold dead hands. Viva la plastica! It's been proven that banning bags does nothing to help the environment, it does however make smug econuts feel better about themselves. So that got that going for them.
COMMENT 247811P	2012-01-11 10:06 AM
I would love to see the study that proved that banning bags makes no difference. Do you have a link? Thanks.
COMMENT 247815	2012-01-11 10:15 AM
artemisia - I feel this is a good compromise/starting point for many. Since our society has been taken over by plastic, it would be difficult for many to completely get rid of it right away. It is really sad, but plastic has become an addiction for a lot of people. I can think of no other reason why people would be opposed to plastic bag bans or plastic bans in general. My biggest problem is the one time use issue. Manufacturing to make an item that fills a convenience only to be discarded is a wate of manufacturing if you ask me. Make a better product and use it more than once. People can do other small things as well. If you don't wish to buy a stainless canteen, get a glass bottle of mineral water. Drink it and then reuse the glass bottle to carry around water without any extra taste whatsoever. Little things like this can make a big difference.
COMMENT 247937	2012-01-11 03:16 PM
A friend of mine just got back from Cabo. Said there were thousands of plastic bags stuck in the fencing on the beach. I seriously doubt a ban in Santa Barbara will have much impact on the reduction of plastic in the ocean.

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