In Mason City, Iowa, young people are making a real difference in their community by working with their city government to protect the environment. It all started after the Mason City Environmental Stewardship Advisory Commission invited the Mason Youth Task Force—a city-appointed community coalition—to help limit the use of plastic bags in their community. The Youth Task Force answered this request by launching the “Bag it Better” campaign to educate community members about the negative effects of plastic bags on the environment.
After winning a grant award from the State Farm Youth Advisory Board, the Youth Task Force was able to launch a local media campaign and purchase 10,000 cloth bags. They kicked off their campaign at the local festival for Earth Day, handing out 8,000 cloth bags to people in exchange for their plastic bags. The group plans to hand out remaining bags at their local Bandfest Parade. They also surveyed 1500 residents on how often they use cloth bags instead of plastic bags, and whether they would support efforts to reduce the number of plastic bags used in Mason City. While 79 percent said they never or only occasionally use cloth bags, 97 percent said it was important to reduce the usage of plastic bags in their community.
From this survey, the youth prepared a proposal for a city ordinance that would impose a user fee of 5 cents per plastic bag. The fees collected from this ordinance would be allocated to the local retail stores, parks and recreation department, street maintenance department, and the Youth Task Force. According to Carol Brown, the Youth Task Force Coordinator, the youth will present their proposed city ordinance to the city council on October, 26, 2010. They also will be presenting their successful, youth-led strategy for community change at the 2010 BigTent Conference. For more information about this session and the conference, please visit the BigTent web site.
back to initiative