Social Responsibility Campaign Helps Create a Healthy National Capitol

For those of us who live in the Washington D.C. area, we’ve been delighted to see the social responsibility campaign underway to reduce litter and generate funds to clean up the Anacostia River, a tributary into the Potomac River. The Healthy Living campaign has been heavily promoted in the city’s Metro rapid transit stations with an abundance of colorful placards and social responsibility messages.

Beginning in October 2009, the District has imposed a $ 0.05 fee for plastic shopping bags provided at retail. The goal is not to raise revenue per se, but to reduce the number of discarded shopping bags that go into the Anacostia. Before the tax was imposed, 47% of the trash found in the Anacostia came from plastic shopping bags.

Needless to say, the $ 0.05 fee is having a big impact. Managers at D.C. stores that sell food or beverages say the effect has been dramatic with many reporting 50% or more reductions. One Safeway store in the city’s Northwest area reports a falloff of more than 6,000 bags a week, about half of its former volume. Since the program’s inception, the number of plastic bags handed out by supermarkets and other establishments has dropped from the 2009 monthly average of 22.5million to just 3 million this past January. Clearly, the fee has succeeded in reducing plastic waste and, better yet, generated $150,000 for the clean up of the Anacostia.

We first learned of the Anacostia and the struggles that the watershed had when we began working with Friends of Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens on behalf of our client, PepsiCo. The organization is a group of concerned area citizens who work to protect and restore wetlands along the river. Given the tidal flow of the Anacostia, and its urban location just two miles from the U.S. Capitol, the area has been described by some as the “toilet bowl” of the District.

D.C. joins other large cities across North America who are learning tolive without plastic shopping bags. In support of Toronto’s goal to achieve 70 per cent waste diversion from landfill, retailers in the City of Toronto are required to charge a minimum of five cents per plastic shopping bag requested by the customer at checkout beginning last June 1. San Francisco has skipped the per-bag fee and has banned plastic bags all together. Los Angeles followed their lead, first imposing a $ 0.25 fee per bag for customers, and then approving a total ban that will go into effect in July 2010. Of the 25 cents assessed per bag, 7 cents go to stores and 18 cents goes to fund recycling and anti-pollution programs in the State of California.

Plastic bags are recycled at less than 33% the rate of paper bags, and make up the largest source of litter in our oceans, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

If you would like to learn more about Healthy Living Marketing and social responsibility campaign development, please contact us at (301) 378-0384.

Tags: healthy living, plastic bag litter, reduce litter, social responsibility campaign