Written by Melanie Moynan-Smith
Athens Rethink Plastics and Sierra Club Ohio participated in the 2022 annual Ohio Pawpaw Festival on Sept. 16-18 at Lake Snowden Park near Albany.
Athens Rethink Plastics (ARP) is a group of individuals concerned about the adverse health and environmental impacts of the production, consumption, and discarding of plastic products. Plastics are forever; they never break down, and eventually, they turn into microplastics that pollute our landfills, rivers, oceans, marine life, and even humans. Microplastics have been found in human blood, stool, and even breastmilk, and they wreak havoc on humans and marine life.
The focus of ARP’s booth was to provide solutions to the plastic crisis, especially regarding single-use plastics, which comprise up to 42 percent of all plastics and are mainly used for food packaging and plastic bottles.
Saturday morning at the Pawpaw Festival, Lee Gregg, Ph.D., presented on the impacts of plastic on the environment and people. ARP's booth included a display showing alternatives to plastics, such as homemade laundry soap, with a recipe for replacing plastic laundry bottles and the soap’s microplastics content. An hourly raffle for reusable upcycled feed bags also was held. Each bag replaces 700 single-use plastic bags. Plastic single-use bags are nearly impossible to recycle due to their plastic and chemical content.
“Who Gives a Crap” toilet paper made of recycled paper or bamboo was handed out to people who cited steps to reduce plastic. Action steps included calling appropriate legislative representatives to support the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act introduced to Congress in 2021. Another action step was to sign a postcard to encourage Kroger supermarkets to honor their Zero Waste pledge to reduce single-use bags and food packaging.
The ARP booth also displayed a poster promoting the Emmy Award-winning film, “The Story of Plastics,” shown Sept. 21 to a full crowd at the Athena Cinema in Athens during Sustainability Week.
More than 200 people visited the booth during the Ohio Pawpaw Festival, and many signed Kroger postcards, made pledges to reduce plastics, received free laundry soap and toilet paper, and won upcycled feed bags sewn by ARP's sewing bee members. The Athens Rethink Plastics team continues its crusade to reduce single-use plastics in southeast Ohio and beyond.
