BY BEN
The Better Bag for a Better World event took place on the 14th of November and provided a fantastic opportunity for the View Finders Team to engage with members of the public in the promotion of a great cause.
Grouped with the Mosman High Environmental Group, the day was focused around the team handing out reusable fabric bags. The fabric bags were decorated and tye-dyed by members of Mosman High. These bags obviously had the benefit of being a tangible way for members of the public to engage with the issues, predominantly plastic bag pollution and the effect that it has on many strands of the ecosystem affecting everything from water, to birds and fish, and ultimately humans.
This initiative is one that the Two Hands organisation are so passionate about and it is this desire to ameliorate the situation that rubbed off on the members of the View Finders group. After a training session with Two Hands, the View Finders were informed about the issues of plastic bag waste and how devastating the effect can be; this enabled them to be able to answer questions from interested members of the public on the day, and achieve a better level of public engagement. If you’d like to read more about the Two Hands workshop that took place at Mosman Youth Centre, click here.
From 9 to 12 in the morning the team and the Mosman High group stood with two stands set up on Military Road. One situated on the gate of Mosman High School and another across the road. The fabric bags were then divided amongst the students who would then go about handing them out, and trying to make the public aware of the issue in the process. At the stands a myriad of other products and different bags were available for sale, all with the set purpose of promoting the environmental sustainability cause. It was through these sales and other donations from members of the public that they were able to raise over $600. This is an impressive amount, and representative of the hard mornings work. The Mosman High team were then free to donate this money as they chose to various charities; Manly’s Little Penguin Fund, Birdlife Australia and Archelon, and the Greek Seaturtle Protection Society, being chosen. These charities are all fantastic ways for the money to have been donated and will allow for a further continuation of the goals of both the Mosman team and the View Finders.
Here’s what one of the View Finders members present at the event had to say:
Marcos
“The ‘better bag for a better world’ event was a fun experience in which both myself, Ben, and Christine met new people and were able to express our passion for the environment. Though not all people walking past our stall were open to taking one of our recyclable bags due tobeing accustomed to nothing being free. Those which did take a bag left feeling happy about themselves for helping the environment. I believe the event was successful, because we managed to hand out all 400 of our reusable calico bags which was made possible thanks to the help of Mosman High’s environmental group and parent volunteers. The public were also informed about how using our reusable bags to replace the use of plastic bags would reduce the amount of pollution entering our waters and environment.
Hopefully, through creating this awareness, we have motivated some people to make the change to reusable bags permanent, fulfilling the aim of this event. Overall the public response to the event was positive. Some people were very keen on learning more about the environment and we enjoyed some long conversations on the topic with them. The majority didn’t have time for us to inform them about our ideas and aims but they were still happy to take a bag and got the main message. Some on the other hand were dismissive of our stall, this I believe was a result of us not expressing enough that the bags were free. I think the event was a fun experience which all volunteers were able to take something out of and were able to create awareness to the public about the environment.”
