×

Fourth-graders lobby for plastic bag ban

From left, Clementine Guenette, Olive Maiore and Essie Ames, fourth-graders at Petrova Elementary School, present their research on plastic bags polluting oceans to the Saranac Lake Village Board of Trustees Tuesday evening. (Enterprise photo — Glynis Hart)

SARANAC LAKE — Fourth-grade students from Petrova Elementary School lobbied the village board to ban the ubiquitous plastic bags provided by grocery stores and other retailers.

The students brought documentation with them, and many of them felt brave enough to address the board aloud.

Fourth-grade teacher Elisa McIntosh said the students had been working on the campaign since Earth Day, April 22.

“They’ve been volunteering their lunch and recess every day,” said McIntosh. “They heard about the governor’s initiative to ban reusable plastic bags, and they want us to support it.”

One student, Augustus Earl, told the board, “Plastic bags are killing animals worldwide. There’s a state law that all these stores that provide plastic bags to their customers have to have a thing to return them in, but very, very few people know about this, including my grandparents.”

Gracen Foster and Melody Costigan, fourth-graders at Petrova Elementary School, present their research on plastic bags polluting oceans to the Saranac Lake Village Board of Trustees Tuesday night. (Enterprise photo — Glynis Hart)

Ethan Knight and Ethan Hayward said plastic bags do not belong in recycling.

“Garbage should be put in the garbage, not in the recycling.”

“We should ban the bags because it’s the right thing to do,” said Gracen Foster and Melody Costigan, who presented their project together. “Everyone should care about ocean animals in the Adirondacks.”

The students talked about pictures they had seen, and shared some of these, in which birds, turtles and other ocean animals were entangled in plastic debris. Some cited a study done in Australia in 2015 that found 90 percent of seabirds have plastic in their digestive tracts.

Mayor Clyde Rabideau accepted a petition from the students, which included many signatures of students who weren’t present at the meeting.

“This is a dynamic group of fourth-graders,” he said. After praising them for coming, he gave them homework — questions he’d like them to research further.

“I’m told there are other communities in New York that have banned plastic bags,” Rabideau said. “I would like to know how those communities coped with the impacts on businesses. Also, I would like to know is there more of a carbon footprint from making a paper bag or a plastic bag?”

Trustee Richard Shapiro said, “I think the impetus is to go to reusable bags more than paper bags. It’s more environmentally sound.”

Shapiro encouraged the students to contact the local chapter of 350.org, an environmental group that is looking at trying to ban the plastic bags. He encouraged them to attend the group’s next meeting Sunday, June 10 at the Saranac Lake Free Library. (Correction: The date of the 350.org meeting was incorrect in a prior version of this article.)

Trustee Melinda Little asked the kids, “How does the plastic get to the wildlife?”

One girl, Hayley, answered that the landfill is next to the river. The kids thought the plastic bags might be getting into the river and washing into the ocean from there.

When Trustee Patrick Murphy spoke, the students clapped. Apparently they know him.

“They invited me to come to their class,” he explained. Murphy is involved with the Youth Climate Change Summit in his job at the Wild Center museum in Tupper Lake.

Rabideau invited the students to come again and thanked them.

“Nights like this are the best part of my job,” he said.

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *

Starting at $4.75/week.

Subscribe Today