Integral Activism Community Action Initiative #1
"Alternative to Plastic Bags"
Narrative of Research Findings

Introduction

On Saturday, February 2nd, 2008, forty-three participants converged upon New York City’s East Village to take part in Stage One of the first community action initiative undertaken by The Interdependence Project’s (IDP) Integral Activism Group: “Alternative to Plastic Bags.”

Strategy

The philosophy behind Stage One is to research, make connections, and educate our community/sangha. The exploration and acquisition of these three elements are the first strategic steps for our activism initiatives.

On February 2nd, we strove to understand the particular context of our intended actions by learning about the legislation, policies, and history surrounding the issue at hand. We spent the day engaging in an analysis of the current system and researching the existing work and initiatives that challenge plastic bag use. Also we compiled contact lists of other groups involved, identified potential partners, and researched models that we can use as guidelines. Not only did our sangha participate but guest advisors, experienced in the political arena, joined us for the day to offer their knowledge and advice. These same guests- NY State Senator Eric Schneiderman, Working Families Party Deputy Director Bill Lipton, and State Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh -along with others, will continue to advise us in future stages of this project.

We divided our sangha participants into four teams, each of which had a different goal for the day:

1) The goal of the Store and Consumer Research Team was to canvas a cross-section of the East Village by sending participants in teams of two to survey stores, restaurants, and consumers about their use of and knowledge surrounding plastic bags. Twenty-five people participated on this team.
2) The goal of the Translating Legislation Team was to find relevant information on current laws, figure out the legal steps, and uncover potential legal obstacles that we may face when approaching and working with this issue. Five people participated on this team.
3) The goal of the Advocacy and Organizational Research Team was to compile a list of related community projects, activist groups, organizations, active lawmakers/representatives and contact them via email or phone. Seven people participated on this team.
4) The goal of the Publicity and Art Team was to come up with mechanisms for publicizing our work as well as developing street theater and other public art platforms to raise community awareness of this issue. Six people participated on this team.

Results

Each team worked diligently to wield a variety of results. Their findings are as follows:

The Store and Consumer Research Team:

• reached out to a total of 140 establishments (mainly a mix of stores and restaurants) and 127 consumers. Seventy-three percent of establishments answered a full or partial set of questions administered by the individual survey teams, and 100% of consumers spoken to answered the full or partial set of questions. General findings are as follows:

• There appears to be an unexpectedly high level of interest on the part of establishments surrounding the initiative to decrease use of plastic bags.

• On average, the cost to an establishment for each plastic bag purchased is between 2-4 cents.

• Not every establishment uses plastic bags or gives them to customers, but most do. There is significant use of paper bags, but not necessarily as a means of decreasing plastic bag use.

• When asked if they would be willing or able to offer a discount to customers that brought their own reusable bag and did not take a plastic bag (a la Whole Foods), most establishments said no.

• A major barrier identified (by establishments that want to decrease their use of plastic bags) is the issue of affordability of a viable alternative option.

• The maintenance of customer service and customer satisfaction is identified as a reason for continued use of plastic bags on the part of establishments.

• Of the number of consumers spoken to, approximately half carried a reusable bag to use for purchases on a regular basis, 20% carried a reusable bag sometimes, and the remaining 30% accepted plastic bags from establishments whenever they were offered.

• Identified reasons for continued use of plastic bags by consumers are their convenience, their re-usability as trash bags, and their need during instances of “spontaneous shopping” (when one does not have the time or thought to bring along a reusable bag).

The Translating Legislation Team:

• Created research guidelines to compile data as follows:

1) Understand the NY City basic legislative structure and process and identify its leaders, key players, and local representatives

2) Understand the NY State basic legislative structure and process and identify its leaders, key players, and local representatives

3) Identify and evaluate any existing NY plastic bag legislation at both the state and city levels.
a. Identify the sponsor/key players who created and championed the bill
b. List the tenets of the law – what exactly does the law stipulate?
c. List the pros/cons/implications of the law and evaluate its effectiveness. What, if any, are the associated trade-offs?

4) Identify the types of legislation one could propose regarding plastic bags & their basic tenets: implications/effectiveness/ease of implementing:
a. Ban bags?
b. Require that people pay for them
i. Does that payment go back to the government as a tax & then get funneled as revenue for an environmental cause?
ii. Does that money go back to the stores as an incentive?
c. Require businesses to facilitate recycling – relatively easy to implement, but is it really effective? The city council loves to implement this kind of bill because it looks good… but does it really help? (also, very difficult to enforce)

5) Identify and evaluate any related pending legislation or bills-in-progress at both the state and city levels.
a. Identify the sponsor/key players who created and championed the bill
b. List the elements of the bill – what exactly does the bill stipulate?
c. List the pros/cons/implications of the law and evaluate its effectiveness. What, if any, are the associated trade-offs?
d. What obstacles is the bill facing? I.e., why hasn’t it been passed?

6) Identify and evaluate existing plastic bag legislation at the national level.
a. Identify the sponsor/key players who created and championed the bill
b. List the elements of the law – what exactly does the law stipulate?
c. List the pros/cons/implications of the law and evaluate its effectiveness. What, if any, are the associated trade-offs?
d. Has the law succeeded with regard to national preemption clauses?
i. Has anyone challenged the law in court?
ii. If so, did it win or was it preempted by existing, higher-level legislation?

7) Identify key environmental groups in the area and their agendas. Which legislative players are associated with the interests represented by those groups?

8) Identify which groups have a vested interest (economical or otherwise) that could be opposite to the environmental organizations’ interests regarding plastic bags. I.e., whose opposition will we be facing at an organizational level? What are those groups’ agendas? Which legislative players are associated with the interests represented by those groups?
• Using these guidelines, researched the NYC Plastic Bag Bill from Jan 2008
• Proposed a guideline for effectively pursuing legislative changes

The Advocacy and Organizational Research Team:

• Identified and compiled lists of governmental, corporate, and non-profit/community groups as potential partners in this initiative.
• Identified and compiled a list of reusable bag manufacturers.
• Researched organizational attitudes towards and position on plastic bag use.
• Identified and compiled a list of articles and web pages on other plastic bag initiatives.
• Researched and compiled information on the New York City law (Int 0640-2007) that requires plastic bag recycling and availability of reusable bags by establishments falling under certain categories.The Publicity and Art Team
• Documented the day through digital photographs (see website).
• Researched and compiled lists of green artists, and discussed their approaches through art to educate the community.
• Compiled lists of related business and community organizations, with specific personal contacts, for future press releases regarding our activist/community events.
• Compiled a list of current alternative bag manufacturers and their websites; there is an abundance of options, but they are not as easily available as plastic bags being given away freely in stores.

Next Steps

Stage Two of our initiative is to design a plan of action using the data gleaned in Stage One. Based on the data, it is evident that a variety of approaches may be used to directly address this community issue. After reviewing our findings, the leadership board sees that there are a couple of paths to pursue.

Firstly, it is obvious that researching legislation is crucial to deciding upon and initiating a clear group action. We see the need for group education regarding our local political structure. To address this, we will be conducting an afternoon “Legislative Workshop for Meditators” on Saturday, April 5th, led by Senator Schneiderman and a team of collaborators from his community and our sangha. We hope this leads to our ability as a group to more effectively gather information and findings around this issue on a political level.

Secondly, we identify the need to continue educating and raising consciousness in our community. While we don’t have a particular strategy or initiative blueprint, we do have information regarding why the use of plastic bags is harmful. To this extent, we can begin creating community conscious-raising activities (i.e. street art). Following the legislative workshop, we will begin planning for this event, which could take place in April or May. We want to create visibility for both the IDP and this issue, which in turn enters the city consciousness as potential mental tide for changes.

Conclusion

Our first day of action resulted in strong community support (from both IDP members and the public), suggesting that this plastic bag initiative is timely in terms of current events and situations. Through this initiative, we will continue to bring our mindfulness meditation practices into purposeful community actions. In turn, our social actions are interdependent with our meditation practices. By reaching out into our local community regarding plastic bag use, we are not only encouraging lasting positive societal, political, and environmental changes, but we are also sharing our sangha and mindfulness practices with others. It is a basis, stemming from the individual practitioner, for what we foresee to be a large-scale effort to improve our community and our planet as a whole, interdependently. We believe that all individuals, imbued with knowledge and given the tools to create lasting change, can and will go forth to uncover fundamental Bodhichitta (awakened heart/mind) within the world.

If you would like to get involved , contact: cassiemey@theidproject.com

Click Here for Debrief and Story in Words and Pictures from Saturday February 2nd, 2008 Day of Practice in Action!

Click Here for Info about Senator Schneiderman's Saturday April 5 legislation workshop: "How Government Works."

Click Here for a beautiful video and photo montage of plastic bags in trees by community member and photographer Melanie Einzig on the
One City Blog.

Click Here to Download a great article (pdf) that outlines the problem posed by plastic bags.

Visit our Discussion Board for much more about the development of our activism and community service work.

Stay Tuned for Much More Info
Coming Soon