Many onlookers were surprised recently to see the DCC recycling penguin walking down George St with some passionate youth. Instead of running away from a giant fake penguin and a mob of teenagers, the Dunedin public were very supportive of their efforts. A group of teenagers and passionate students set-up four stalls in the centre of town to raise awareness about the affect of plastic bags on NZ.
"Plastic bags aren't free day" was the culmination of months of planning from the students of DSSCF 09. The Dunedin Secondary Schools Climate Forum (DSSCF) this year was held at John McGlashan College and the group decided to take some action about a very small thing with a major effect on the New Zealand Environment.
"Plastic bags cost New Zealanders an average of 25 million dollars a year in hidden costs on shopping bills, but if that doesn't make you doubt the use of plastic bags, more than 100,000 turtles and mammals are killed every year due to plastic bag related injuries.", group member Tim Shiels said.
So Dunedin Secondary students decided to take action: setting up stalls, on August 15th, and handing out information about the use of plastic bags worldwide.
The group also swapped plastic bags for reusable bags (kindly donated by DCC waste and water services and Progressive Enterprises).
The plastic bags made a line of over 70 metres which was taken to the Octagon to show Dunedin that if this was just the tip of the iceberg the problem was huge, "onlookers were just astonished by the chain...The truly sobering thing is that this was only a small percentage of bags given out in just 5 hours in a fairly small city like Dunedin", co-organiser Celia Neilson said after the event.
Dunedin shops were invited to join the cause and charge 10c for plastic bags for one day only, "Disappointingly, we only knew of two stores that bravely took part- Stirling Sports and The Athletes' Foot", Paul Young, the other organiser said.