A Community Solid Waste Program 397
Communities can work with shop
owners and local governments to
prevent materials that cause disposal
or health problems from entering
the community in the first place.
Community organizing can pressure
governments to make laws that force
businesses to reduce their waste and
to take responsibility for the wastes
they create.
Banning plastic bags
Outside the village of Emmonak in Alaska, plastic shopping bags often
escaped from the town landfill and were carried by the wind. In the nearby
town of Galena, they got stuck in trees or drifted into the nearby Yukon River.
By Kotlik, where the river runs into the sea, plastic bags were found wrapped
around dead seals and salmon.
Since the 3 villages banned plastic bags in 1998, this no longer happens.
Following these villages, 30 other communities around the state of Alaska
banned plastic bags, and the ban is growing. In towns and villages, people are
encouraged to use paper bags or to carry cloth bags that can be used over and
over, for years.
As part of the campaign against plastic waste in Alaska, the State
Department of Environmental Conservation and the Yukon River
Inter-tribal Watershed Council began a program
to teach people how to reuse
the plastic bags by making
them into other things.
Now people cut the bags
in strips and weave them
into backpacks, handbags,
doormats, baskets, and other
useful items. They even sell
them, making money from
things that once clogged the
sewers and littered the roads.
A Community Guide to Environmental Health 2012