Shopper? No thanks!

by Eleonora Anello

Did you know that there is a growing corner of the Pacific Ocean in which floats a real landfill composed mostly of plastic? To raise awareness and deal with this problem that affects mainly the marine ecosystem, MCS (Marine Conservation Society), a British non-profit association, and movement "Plastic bag free cities", consisting of 140 British towns completely shopper free, havelaunched on 12 September, the first "Plastic bag free day".

The first international day without plastic bag will be the right opportunity when it will be important not to accept shoppers, but it will be even more important to ensure that always carry a bag to the following become a healthy and beautiful practise.

In Italy promotes and supports the initiative "Porta la Sporta” (Carries the bag), the campaign promoted by the Comuni Virtuosi (Virtuous Commons) of which we had already spoken in a previous post. And in order to become the day a real success, organizers rely of word of mouth, a powerful tool for viral marketing, which is giving rise to various events throughout the territory and appears to be the strategic key of a change that could revolutionize the mores of society by helping the environment.

Specifically Porta la Sporta, like British promoting organizations, has planned a classic campaign that starts from the web, pervasive media, democratic and that allow a large number of people instantaneously and cheaply. It retrieves online all the material to spread the initiative in an extensive and comprehensive way at the same time. Not just putting up posters in strategic locations to inform and to involve citizens, but also press releases ready for use to contact local media and local governments that both can do so much for a successful event. These devices make an ordinary citizen becoming a real professional ecoactivist.

Positive the expectations of Silvia Ricci, organizer of the campaign: «As stated in the claim of the international movement "We are what we do". Single positive actions undertaken by so many people amounted can reach large numbers and generate great changes».

Saturday shoppers will be an opportunity for all of us to reduce our addiction from plastic shopping bags on behalf of more durable and trendy shoppers!