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June 29, 2024
Editor, The News-Gazette: Greetings! I am really excited to be writing about the choices that I am realizing that can really help limit the size of our growing and destructive waste problems in this world.
I first participated in a campaign limiting single-use plastic consumption when I was a paid intern at Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment in Arlington. The organization ran a campaign to end the use of plastic straws through consumer choice and business participation.
Since I learned how not all items you put in the recycling bin are recycled and how detrimental landfills and trash burning are to our health, let alone our environment, I have started making small choices to end my use of single-use plastic. I gave up using plastic straws when eating out, getting leftovers in anything except glass containers and trying to use mesh or hemp produce bags in addition to re-usable shopping bags that I purchased.
But, this year, I heard about Plastic F ree J uly! I n ot o nly pledged to reduce my single-use plastic use, I signed up for tips and took the plastic free quiz. I made a commitment to get metal straws and more bamboo utensils, use green trash bags instead of plastic garbage bags and try to not buy as much produce in prepackaged plastic wrap or bins. Since I signed up to handle waste for my church’s vacation Bible school, I am going to contact the director to see if she can think of ways we can use less plastic and teach a lesson about caring for each other to the kiddos.
I am very excited to recommend that everyone who reads this letter to the editor to visit www.plasticfreejuly.org to take the Plastic Free Pledge and the quiz offered on the website. So many people have committed to taking steps to show they care about our health and about our planet and being stewards of the Earth that you cannot help but feel a vital sense of encouragement that your choices matter. Regardless of how small they appear, our actions count. They all add up. EMILY PFISTER Buena Vista Member of the Shenandoah Chapter of the Sierra Club and of Rockbridge Conservation’s Waste Committee
