Flagstaff Non-Profit Reduces Plastic Waste With Pocket Program | Arizona News

FLAGSTAFF, AZ (3TV / CBS 5) – A nonprofit in Flagstaff is committed to the environment by reducing plastic waste. You have started a program that picks up on the reusable plastic bag in a unique way. Instead of everyone having their own, the community is asked to return the bags after use.

“It really became clear that people didn’t need another reusable bag. We needed a way to make a reusable bag truly reusable and get it out again and again in the community,” said Emily Melhorn, program manager for the nonprofit Azulita project.

They even plan to keep the bags disinfected to prevent the spread of COVID-19 by quarantining the bags for three days and then machine washing them. The Azulita Project tried the reusable bag community program in some places like a farmers market, but there was a problem.

“People would get a reusable bag from us, but they wouldn’t necessarily make the connection that they should then return the bag to be reused and distributed in the community,” Melhorn said.

So they just got a grant to come up with a new design on the bag that will let people know how it works. The design is still in progress. Melhorn said that a reusable bag has a life cycle of 750 single-use plastic bags, so it will save around one million single-use plastic bags from this program initially.

“Eliminating and reducing the use of single-use plastic bags is a big problem and would do a lot for the health of our environment,” said Melhorn.

“It’s going to a landfill, where it takes over 500 years to … and it doesn’t even break down; it’s broken down by light. It just breaks into smaller and smaller pieces, the toxins in our soils in our waterways in ours.” release oceans. “

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