Bagging the better way

Replacing plastic bags with a sense of community

By SANDY LONG

SULLIVAN COUNTY, NY — It’s happening in Wurtsboro, is underway in Barryville and Jeffersonville and might soon come to Narrowsburg. Driven by students and community members, the switch from plastic shopping bags to reusable bags in Sullivan County towns is moving along like a plastic bag blowing in the wind.

The motivations are many—reducing local waste streams, beautifying rural landscapes, decreasing the number of flimsy plastic flappers that can take between 500 to 1,000 years to degrade into increasingly smaller bits that ultimately contaminate water, soil, air and food.

In Wurtsboro, residents Patricia Diness and Cathy Dawkins have organized an effort called “Come Clean—One Village at a Time.” The pair has reached out to encourage their community, and hopefully others throughout the county, to eliminate the use of plastic shopping bags in favor of reusable bags. Various organizations, business owners and local students have become involved. “We wanted something that would unite the community in a positive effort,” said Dawkins.

The village wants to be the first in Sullivan County to go “bag-free,” and has set a launch date of July 5. One free bag per household will be distributed, along with low-cost bags made available through town merchants.

Support has come through the Basha Kill Area Association, the Wurtsboro Board of Trade, Orange and Rockland Utilities, the Wurtsboro Renaissance and Sullivan Renaissance. Funding from each has resulted in a program that will not cost merchants anything.

The project includes an educational component, too. Students from Emma Chase Elementary School prepared a presentation and delivered it to 65 adults from the community. “It helps the children to view things from different perspectives,” said Dawkins. “While we don’t always share the same goals, members of small communities need to solve problems together, creatively and cooperatively. We’re very hopeful that on various fronts, this will bring the community together.”

A high school student is being sought to serve as an intern to continue developing the initiative. For more information visit www.thebashakill.org or contact Cathy.Dawkins@frontiernet.net or pdiness@earthlink.net.

Farther up the Delaware River in Barryville, senior Girl Scout Erika Vorstadt of Troop #702 has received a $1,000 Sullivan Renaissance Environmental Demonstration Grant to create reusable shopping bags. Vorstadt’s project, “Erika’s Better Bags,” will focus on educating community members in the Towns of Highland and Lumberland about the harms of plastic shopping bags and creating and distributing 250 reusable bags.

A freshman at Eldred Central School, Vorstadt has achieved the Girl Scout Bronze and Silver Awards and will earn the Gold Award with this project. Vorstadt will draw upon her sewing skills to create the bags, and is recruiting family members and friends to help in their construction. “It will incorporate a lot of people from the community to work together,” said her father, Tom.

The Town of Tusten has been talking about bagging plastics, too. Narrowsburg Chamber of Commerce president Jane Luchsinger said that several meetings have occurred to discuss the possibilities, and that local production of bags made from recycled newspaper has been explored. No plans are yet in place, but input is invited.

In another local effort, last year, 120 fifth-grade students at Sullivan West Elementary School surveyed their families to determine how many plastic bags were being consumed in a two-week period. When they discovered that 2,738 bags were being brought home every two weeks by the 78 families who responded, the children developed a campaign, Project Earth Sack, promoting the alternative of reusable bags. The initiative was spearheaded by their teacher, Susanne Mullally, following a trip to Ireland where a PlasTax (a plastic bag consumption tax) was implemented in 2002 to help change consumer behavior.

Today, the sixth-grade class of 2014 is selling its biodegradable bags, which are made in the U.S. and display artwork and a slogan created by two students. The bags sell for $11 each and will help fund a trip to the Frost Valley YMCA camp. Contact Mullally at 845/482-4610 ext. 2253 to purchase one. Other ideas are being explored, such as a county-wide plastic bag-free day or week.