EcoFest in Chicago Highlights Demand for Change

 EcoFest in Chicago Highlights Demand for Change

 

 47th Ward Alderman Matt Martin hosted the 3rd Annual EcoFest on Chicago's north side on Saturday, June 01, 2024.  The purpose of the Ecofest was to provide local residents with the opportunity to recycle hard-to-recycle materials, meet with representatives from ecologically sustainable organizations, purchase and receive perennial native plants, and build community around the concept of ecological sustainability. 

Organizing for Plastic Alternatives (OPA) tabled during the event and met with dozens of individuals who are ready to make the transition away from single use plastics. OPA seeks to educate, generate common sense legislation, and act toward a single use plastic free future.

Based on our surveys, petitions and informal conversations, the mood of most consumers (85%) is that we should be shifting away from single use plastics and toward more sustainable materials that decompose or are easily recycled or, better yet, are refillable. We have found that most people are ready for government to intervene with policies that require  restaurants and grocery stores stop inundating us with single use plastics. 

Consider two options: We can educate 8 billion people on the planet to transition off of plastics or we can compel a few dozen mega-corporations to discontinue the exploitation of fossil fuels to create single use plastics that end up everywhere as solid waste that never completely decomposes but does break down into microplastics that literally rain and snow down upon us. 

Here's an example of an advertisement campaign: https://www.behance.net/gallery/186266921/PSA-Poster-Ad-Series. Good to be sure. But far less efficient than policy that bans single use plastic production and use. 

In Illinois, the legislature is currently considering laws that would ban single use plastic bags, styrofoam, hotel toiletry small bottles of soap and lotion, and create a new bottle bill as in other states. These measures have much higher impact on the amount of plastic trash in our world. 

So educate, yes, but legislate at federal, state, city, and local levels. It's getting late in the game.



 

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