Since I have a healthy hang-up with trash and how to keep reducing it, I thought I’d take another look recently to see what was in there. I found mostly bits of unrecyclable plastic. I decided to find out how I could recycle just 1 item of this motley crew: plastic dry cleaning bags. After searching online, I did not find any dry cleaners or small recyclers that would accept them, but I did find was a great DIY site that offered a tip: tie the hanger end into a knot and use it as a large garbage bag—great, a way to reuse them, even better than recycling… But what about everyone else’s bags? I doubt most people are planning to tie knots in theirs or make fluffy plastic DIY Christmas wreaths.

To my surprise my search also turned up a piece of pending legislation on this very subject: Bill # A.11725/S.8643. This is a NY state plastic bag recycling bill that, should it pass, would override the more stringent NYC plastic bag recycling law that was signed last January. 

After reading up on both city and state legislation, I called the state office, asking them to veto this state bill and voicing my preference for the city version. For any New Yorkers out there, you still have time to call Governor Patterson’s office to voice your opinion.

The city bill is quite encompassing and well suited to NYC. It is meant to dramatically reduce the overabundance of plastic grocery bags and plastic dry cleaning bags, which often get caught in city trees, strangling their branches. They also get swallowed by sea life, clog landfills, and are just plain ugly and wasteful.

I personally haven’t taken any measurable direct action regarding politics in over 8 years. I was gung ho for Ralph Nader when he ran in 1996 and 2000. I remember being so hopeful as a pole watcher during the 2000 election, as I gave out info at polling sites to vote green, a piece of green felt wrapped around my upper arm. After that I stopped being politically involved and just focused on what I could do personally to continue “greening” my life.

And it’s great to see how we can streamline our lives to be simpler and less demanding on all kinds of resources. It’s also incredibly inspiring and powerful to see how our attention to making these changes is strengthened and multiplied when we encourage each other through committing to a challenge together. Recycling, simplifying our households, and composting are great, but we can and must do so much more.

That’s why we are going to focus our efforts this month on getting out the message to our elected officials and to do so whenever we can in groups. With congress members home for recess in their legislative districts during the month of August, why not visit them and voice our concerns for solutions to climate change by supporting clean, renewable energy? Since we each have our own interests and niches of information, let’s share the research we’ve done with each other and take direct action in the political arena. For myself, I am focusing on three issues to get the ball rolling:

• Sending a personalized email to my friends and family in NY, offering information on plastic bag laws so they can call the governor’s office as well.
• Signing up with 1sky.org to learn about and take action towards supporting renewable energy projects, including visiting my legislators when they are back in their home districts. I will also email everyone on my address list with the 1sky info, encouraging them to do the same.
• Signing up to purchase wind power through a woman I know from Community Energy. It will be an extra nominal charge on our bill but worth the few extra dollars per month, and making changes like this gives the power of direct, experiential knowledge to discussions I may have with law-makers and others in my community

I’m excited to exercise my rights and responsibilities as a citizen. The sky is really the limit—whether your interest is in legislation, working on local issues, or getting involved with a favorite candidate’s political campaign, I encourage you to take action. Not only does it help push the country in the right direction; it helps each of us push ourselves in the right direction, too, as No Impact Man so eloquently described in his blog last month.

What kind of engagement will you have in our democracy this month?

(image by sonyaseattle via flickr.)