greenUP! summer intern!, Michelle Zhang, a rising junior at Nueva School, has designed this year’s plastic free July campaign for greenUP! outlined below:
Each week, Michelle will be taking on plastic-free challenges and sharing her experiences. Stay tuned and follow along with us, starting July 7!
Watch video blog Michelle created to share her experience with the plastic free July Campaign. Video link: https://vimeo.com/581670754
Week 2 Challenges
It’s Week 2 of #PlasticFreeJuly, and this week we’re focusing on how you can help out in your community. Below are ideas to help you gain inspiration, so do what you’re interested in! We’d love to hear what you’re planning to do.
Did you know that many of the plastic products we use every day take a lot of time to degrade? Check out some of the different items below and how long it takes for each of them to fully decompose. Did any of these surprise you?
Week 3 Challenges
For Week 3 of #PlasticFreeJuly, we are looking at the global impact of plastic! The three challenges for this week focus around sharing news, articles and videos relating to plastic and the current situation in the world. Share this post with friends and encourage them to do some research as well!
Please watch the Story of Plastic Video and share the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO3SA4YyEYU
Week 4 Challenge
Using what you’ve learned during greenUP’s campaign for Plastic Free July, make one change in your life that will contribute to saving the planet and minimizing plastic usage. This can be on a smaller scale, like minimizing usage of plastic bottles, or on a larger scale. Let us know what you do!
See video created by Michelle Zhang about her experience with Plastic Free July: https://vimeo.com/581670754
About Plastic
Plastic production has multiplied exponentially over the last twenty years, flooding the market with more plastic products than our waste management systems are prepared to handle.
Much of this recent plastic proliferation has been characterized by plastics with a fleeting lifetime of use. Plastic straws, bags, utensils, and cups, especially, all have an active use time of anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, yet are made of materials that persist in the environment for centuries. These common single-use plastics, which we don’t have great recycling systems for, are sent almost immediately to our landfills, or worse––they escape into our environment. These escaped plastics, in particular, pose a risk to human and ecological health due to physical and chemical pollution. Scientists are also beginning to research possible health implications of microplastics, the product of non-biodegradable plastics breaking into smaller and smaller pieces. Microplastics are being found in land and water systems everywhere, including Lake Tahoe, where they make their way into the global food chain.
greenUP! invites all interested community members to follow along with Plastic Free July challenges that will be posted weekly on greenUP!’s website and social media. At the same time, greenUP! wants to encourage members of the community to frequent Carson City Green Dining District Restaurants that work to reduce waste of all types.
From July 25th through August 1, the green dining district street banner spanning Carson Street at East Telegraph Street in Carson City. “Each time the banner flies, we do a special promotion to acknowledge our green dining district restaurants that work tirelessly to reduce all different kinds of waste including plastic waste,” said Donna Walden, President of greenUP! “Anyone that joins the green dining district’s “clean plate club” will receive $1-off coupon good at participating restaurants during that banner week.” The clean plate club is calling upon green dining district patrons to take on the challenges highlighted by greenUP! during plastic free July. They will receive periodic updates from greenUP! on what they can do to make Carson City more desirable from an environmental standpoint. Check greenUP!’s Facebook and Instagram page for more details.
About Michelle Zhang:
Michelle hasn’t yet decided on what she plans to study in college but is interested in pursuing something related to the environment. Outside of her demanding schedule at high school, she plays the flute in a music ensemble, draws and paints (watercolors and acrylics), and spends time with her friends (both virtually but now also in person!). Michelle enjoys nature and going on hikes with her family.