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The BYOB Story:
Challenging Our Throw-Away Culture
by Justin Rolfe-Redding
BYOB Organizer, Seattle
Grassroots political change never seems to have the order and sense to it that we are used to seeing in the history books. So it has been with the Bring Your Own Bag (BYOB) campaign in Seattle, Washington. Though it now appears that they will have played a seminal role in that city's decision to aggressively reduce the use of disposable shopping bags, its members never would have expected it when they started a little over a year earlier.
Three individuals have made up BYOB: Liz, a mosaic artist; her partner Dan, a natural landscaper; and Justin, a handyman (Dan and Liz's new son Sequoia joined the campaign, and the world, just this year). They had met through the Seattle Rainforest Action Group, which has been part of an international campaign to end the human rights abuses and destructive behavior of logging giant Weyerhaeuser. After helping to organize a demonstration at the corporation's annual shareholder meeting in the spring of 2007, the three were looking at other ways they could influence the company. They realized that a local natural foods coop chain was using Weyerhaeuser paper bags in its checkout line. If the store could be convinced to switch bag brands, this would send a clear message to the logging company's bottom line.
The group's evolution in thinking quickly went several steps further. Were other brands of paper bag really any better? Plastic bags, too, have their environmental pitfalls. Disposable bags of all sorts, it turned out, have a cumulatively large impact on the environment, from plastic debris that finds its way into the stomachs of marine animal" to the greenhouse gases and deforestation associated with paper. Working to put an end to disposable bags of all sorts was the only route that made ecological sense.
While a more "experienced" group of political campaigners might have chosen to keep their goal narrow for strategic reasons--and merely focus on Weyerhaeuser products--these grassroots activists made the bold choice to tackle the whole enchilada and press the coop chain to impose an across-the-board fee on all disposable bags handed out in the store. This would encourage the adoption of reusable bags and, so was the hope, help to create a broader mindset shift about disposability and sustainable living among customers. If they could convince this chain to begin charging for bags, so went the thinking, other area stores could be persuaded to follow.
The newly christened BYOB began by handing out fliers at the coop's annual membership meeting and surveying customers about their interest in a bag fee (shoppers were receptive). While in negotiations with the store, however, the work of the bag activists took an exciting new turn. They learned from another grassroots organization, Foam Free Seattle, that the Seattle city council was currently considering waste reduction legislation, a promising opportunity both to achieve that group's goal of banning Styrofoam take-out containers, and also, potentially to achieve a city-wide shift in bag use in one fell swoop. While continuing to pressure the coop, BYOB began exploring the world of city politics.
To the first council meeting they attended, the group brought a large prop, a four foot high clear bag stuffed with the 444 plastic bags that Seattleites use every minute (no joke!), which they brought to the podium with them when they spoke. This proved a hit and earned them an appearance on the local TV news coverage that evening. The activists became a regular presence at council meetings, creating additional props and continuing to remind councilors about the environmental impacts of disposable bag use, as well as the financial cost to the city for disposal, and to call for legislation to require an aggressive bag fee. BYOB soon earned the support of several key councilors, and a study was commissioned by the council to evaluate the idea.
While the delay was unwelcome for Liz, Dan and Justin (who were well aware that those in power love to "study'"issues as a way to delay and ignore demands for social change), they took the six months offered by this process to continue to organize, working with the coop chain and speaking with other local stores about the bag fee proposal and enlist their support for what the city council was considering.
As the final draft of the study was being prepared, members of BYOB began to hear about interest in the idea from the Mayor's office. This created a somewhat awkward, but not necessarily unwelcome, situation as the activists stepped back from the legislative process and allowed competing politicians to take credit for a policy that could become a green feather in their hats. So it was that in April, 2008, Mayor Greg Nickels and City Council President Richard Conlin announced a first-in-the-nation plan to impose a 20 cent fee on most disposable bags across Seattle. The city's study indicates that this should start a massive shift to reusable shopping bags, reducing disposables by 90 percent and cutting the city's global warming gases equivalent to taking 620 cars off the road. This promising proposal has not yet been written into law, but it enjoys broad support on the city council and is expected to pass and go into force on January 1st, 2009.
For the three members of BYOB, new to negotiating with stores and navigating city hall, this experience has taught them a few things. Firstly, being savvy or lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time makes life much easier in creating change. In their case, consciousness around the issue of disposable bags is hitting a critical mass, and both politicians and the public in Seattle readily embraced the idea of reducing their use. This story also serves as a reminder, for anyone whose cynicism may have led them to doubt it, that, indeed, a few people are capable of creating a great deal of change in the world, and success comes with persistence and a belief in your values even when the struggle appears daunting. | |
