Millicent Burggraf(participant)
*Group name
Plastic Bag Free Armstrong Street
*Country/Region
Australia
*Type of Group
Community
*Number of total members of your group/project
2 persons
*Number of regular participants in activities
2
*Characteristic of members
The members of our group are middle class school children, who live close to the city. Our environment is full of tree lined streets, parks and beaches, though we cannot escape the environmental issues.
*Theme(s) of your group/project
*Wastes and Recycling
*Missions and activities of your group/project
Our mission is to make our local shopping strip plastic bag free. Our aim is to develop a forefront for others to learn from and follow. After the Summit we got together and developed a project that would be within our capabilities to achieve. We felt that while there were many big environmental issues that needed solving we needed aim at something that we could achieve within our own environment. Our first breakthrough was with our local Council which committed its support to our cause. Through these connections doors opened for us and we gained publicity through the local news media and were introduced to the leaders of our State Government. Our numerous presentations to schools and various levels of government has lead to our State Government committing $200,000 towards the elimination of plastic bags within local shopping precincts. Our project is still in progress...
*Characteristics of the group/project activities
Our project aims to reduce the use of plastic bags within the community. Plastic bags are harmful to our environment in many ways for example they can kill animals such as marine life if washed into waterways and take 2000 years to decompose. They take up much landfill space and use a lot of energy to produce. If you tied together all the plastic bags that Australians use within a year it would be enough to circle the globe 42 1/2 times. Through our activities we aim to educate the public about the negative effects of plastic bags. Our focus on our local community provides us (young Australians) a project that is not too overwhelming to complete and gives us an opportunity to develop our abilities for future environmental projects.
*Most importnat way of thinking of your group/project for environment
The key objective of this project is to educate our local community about the negative effects of plastic bags within the environment by stopping the use of them in our local shopping strip (Armstrong Street).
*Major publications and articles
Port Philip Leader, Emerald Hill Times
*What kind of group/project do you want to exchange for imformation and experience with?
The group which is working about Wastes and Recycling.
*Short message for exchange with other group/project
We would like to find out what they are doing in their own environment.
*Impression of Children's World Summit for the Environment 2005 Aichi
It was inspiring and has encouraged me to start actively working for the environment.
*Others
We were very surprised at how open our local and state governments were to helping us with our campaign, and how keen they were to help us.
*Contact person
Millicent Burggraf
*Contact Address
67 Canterbury rd, Middle Park 3206, Victoria, Australia
teresaandron@bigpond.com
