A Big Day for Plastic Bags

Are you overwhelmed by plastic bags? Do you have a kitchen cabinet full of bags? Do you have plastic bags full of plastic bags? What do you do with them? Can they be recycled?

Michelle Verges, professor of psychology at Indiana University South Bend, is looking at the plastic bag issue and gathering statistical information with her two statistics classes this spring. The classes are gathering bags to create an enormous pile of plastic bags.

The culmination of their hard work will be BagFest from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 14, in the Grille (Administration Building cafeteria) and the Student Activities Center, IU South Bend. It is a public event to raise awareness about the environmental and economic impact of plastic bags.

Community members are encouraged to bring their plastic bags to this event for the bag-pile up. The purpose of the bag pile-up is to provide festival attendants a visual illustration of the number of plastic bags that are sent to landfills when they are not recycled. Afterwards, these plastic bags will be loaded onto a Wal-Mart semi-truck for recycling.

Bag pile-up will be from noon to 4 p.m. in the Grille. Students will work in teams to collect data and count bags.

For people donating their bags, parking is available adjacent to the Administration Building at the corner of Mishawaka Avenue and Esther Street. Other parking is available at 20th Street and Mishawaka Avenue.

People donating bags will receive an anti-bag sticker. People donating 50 or more bags will receive a reusable bag.

BagFest will include a panel discussion at 1 p.m. in the Student Activities Center. The panel will include Steve Antonetti, marketing manager of Wal-Mart, discussing Wal-Mart’s recycling program; Vincent Cobb, founder of reusablebags.com, speaking on the importance of reusing cloth bags; Calvin Manns, supervisor of South Bend Waste Paper, speaking on local efforts; and Jeff Ashby, owner of Rock Mountain Recycling, Salt Lake City, discussing the economics of plastic-bag recycling.

Audience members may submit questions to the panelists.

The main speaker will be Elizabeth Royte, bestselling author of "Garbage Land: on the Secret Trail of Trash." Royte will autograph books between 2 and 2:30 p.m. and she will speak at 3 p.m. Royte's book will be for sale throughout the day.

Businesses and organizations will have exhibits on the campus pedestrian mall.

Other parking lots will be open at Mishawaka Avenue and 20th Street for those wishing to attended the panel discussion and the lecture.

BagFest is sponsored by the Wal-Mart Foundation, Indiana Campus Compact through a grant from the Lilly Endowment Fund, Office of Research, School of Education and School of Business and Economics at Indiana University South Bend.

Visit the project Web site at http://www.iusb.edu/~cpbags/ or the blog site http://www.conserveplasticbags.blogspot.com/ for further information.

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