Bring Your Own Bag: Billboard Project

Trash Academy has set a goal to see all of Philadelphia’s diverse communities take action to promote reusable bags. Of floating debris in Philadelphia, 17% is plastic bags that clog our storm water drains and contribute to flooding. Plastic pollution is not just prevalent in our streets and streams. Plastic enters our bodies through the seafood we eat that has ingested plastics and through the toxic fumes released by incinerated bags. Low-income communities of color are disproportionately affected, as incineration facilities are often sited near them. Reusable bags are a common sense, just alternative.

Trash Academy, in collaboration with Clean Water Action and the City of Philadelphia’s Zero Waste and Litter Cabinet, initiated a campaign to reduce the number of plastic bags in our streets and in our waste stream. To support action on this issue, Trash Academy helped to form a diverse coalition of grassroots organizations, non-profits, block captains, and neighbors, while CWA worked with businesses and government. Trash Academy participants developed artistic interventions in multiple artistic media, creating graphics, posters, banners, a website and costumes in addition to the billboards around the city that were used by coalition members to amplify their work for the protection of our city’s health and environment.