With a potential plastic bag ban on the horizon in Bowling Green, an environmental strategies class at BGSU is seeking to increase support for the ban by hosting a DIY reusable bag event at Grounds for Thought on May 7 from 4-7:30 p.m.
Madi Stump, a junior in the class and a sustainability advocate, said the desire to host an event like this comes from community members voicing concerns about not having reusable bags if the ban were to pass.
“We have been following the plastic bag ban this entire semester, and the one thing we have realized from going to public meetings and talking to other people is people feel like they don’t have the equipment, they don’t have their own reusable bag, they don’t want to buy them, and they don’t have the money to buy them,” Stump said.
However, for Holly Meyers’ environmental strategies class, they believed they could alleviate this issue by helping community members create their own reusable bag in a low-cost way.
“One thing we felt that we could do contributing to this issue in the community is to provide community members with their own reusable bags. Not only that, but also show them how they could make it on their own in a no cost way, because there’s a really easy way to make these t-shirts into a bag,” Stump said.
The significance of using reusable bags stems from the growing amount of plastic pollution in the ocean. According to Ocean Crusaders, approximately 100,000 marine creatures die each year from plastic entanglement and approximately 1 million seabirds die from plastic each year.
Stump believes using reusable bags is part of the solution to this growing issue.
“You can use these reusable bags, so you can become part of the solution,” Stump said. “You can become part of the movement through not spending any money, but rather just spending a little bit of time.”
However, there are concerns among other students on campus about how only using reusable bags would affect their living situations.
“I use plastic bags as a means of taking out my trash,” senior Mea Allen said.
Nonetheless, there are several perks of these reusable bags. According to Stump, the perks include: the bags grow stronger the more they are used, they can hold more than the average usable canvas grocery bags and they are super easy to clean because they are simply t-shirts.
Stump also said, “It can be done by people of all ages,” making it accessible to the entire community.
For more information on the event, visit their Facebook page.