NEYLC Members Fight to Ban Plastic Bags!

Cassie Zito and Emily Rintoul, both members of the New England Youth Leadership Council, helped testify for a ban on plastic bags in front of the Environment Committee.

You can help out too! While the grocery store lobby is opposing the ban, if you are from Connecticut, you can call your state representative and urge them to pass Bill No. 5717 to ban the free distribution of plastic bags. To find your representative, check out this website.

After Cassie and Emily's testimony, Channel 8 ran the story with some sound bites from Emily. You can find Emily on Channel 8 both here and here. Finally, the Hartford Courant also wrote up the story. Emily's written testimony is also included below.

Great job guys!

Youth Testimony

Good morning. My name is Emily Rintoul. I was recently selected by the Jane Goodall Institute's, youth organization, Roots and Shoots, to serve on its youth council. I'm proud to be here today to represent these wonderful organizations.

A few years ago, I was fortunate to travel to the United Nations Environmental Program's conference in Aichi, Japan. While at the conference we heard many inspiring stories, accompanied by photos and pictures, of youth who had helped to clean up some really bad trash and litter areas in the world. Several young people from Africa showed mounds of plastic bags removed from streets in their own volunteer efforts to clean up their villages. Since then some of those countries, such as Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, and others, have banned the use of plastic bags, or have banned the free distribution of these bags. Most surprisingly, China joined the ban on free distribution in January of this year. Just think about that! We often speak negatively of China, with its many pollution problems, but even China has been able to take this firm stand. China's estimates of oil use on plastic bags was 37 million barrels of crude oil per year. Some estimates put the world distribution of plastic bags at 4 to 5 trillion bags per year. I have heard other youth talk about the improvements in their towns and communities as a result of cleaning up the plastic litter. Many of these youth were poor themselves or came from poor countries. Yet they were able to do big things. They were willing to do tiring and dirty work. They were able to make their surroundings more beautiful, safe, and healthy.

In this country we have big plastic problems still to face. We may not have quite as much litter in our Connecticut suburbs as there is blowing around in third world countries, but our landfills are huge. They're growing much faster than our natural resources. And we do have plastic floating in our water and drifting across our parks. We have mounds of plastic that will take hundreds, if not thousands of years to break down again. I'd like to be able to say to the youth in Roots and Shoots groups around the world that we have worked just as hard to clean up our own plastic problems. I'd like to report to my youth council, and the other councils around the country, that Connecticut is leading the way to greener solutions in this country. San Fransisco banned the free distribution of plastic bags last year, after learning that a tax of 17c per bag was just not enough to make a difference.

In this country we have the money to tackle plastic problems in many different ways. Transporting our stuff can be done easily with fabric bags, boxes, biodegradable bags, recyled paper, metal containers and dozens of other types of containers. We don't need plastic. Life will go on without it as it did for thousands of years before it. The entrepreneurs of this country have already stepped up to offer good alternatives to plastic.

We ask that you pass a bill to ban the distribution of plastic bags. Don't pass the buck, or the bag, on to my generation to deal with the problem. We're ready to make the changes now.
Thank you.
Emily Rintoul