While many 17-year-olds are focused on college admissions or summer vacations, Cameron Blanchard is using her time to try and make her world a cleaner, better place.
Blanchard spoke to the Orange Beach City Council to try to encourage them to ban plastic bags city wide.
Her proposal came as a bill at the state level which would have banned municipalities from banning plastic bags stalled in committee.
The issue became special to Blanchard after a trip abroad to Germany.
“As soon as I stepped foot off the plane, I could feel a tangible change in the air,” Blanchard said. “Everything felt cleaner and more pure. There were huge wind turbines supplying energy, the roads were free of litter and there were recycle bins for individual items on almost every street corner.”
She said when she went grocery shopping with her family there, things were very different. Customers were expected to bring their own bags, bottled returned to a machine returned change to the customer and there were recycle bins for practically everything.
“People composted their food and recycled flowers,” Blanchard said. “Everything that could be recycled was recycled, and everything that could be conserved was conserved. By the end of the day, there was a fourth of the trash in a trash can than there would be in any given American household.”
She encouraged Orange Beach city leaders to take a stand and be trailblazers for environmental change. Blanchard said the average plastic bag will have a lifespan of about 12 minutes.
“When these plastic bags are discarded, their lightweight form is easily carried from landfills into sewage and storm drains and carried into our oceans where they kill more than 100,000 marine mammals each year,” Blanchard said. “To make this matter even more disturbing, these plastic bags degenerate into microplastic that can stay in our waters for up to a thousand years.”
She said this degeneration has caused more than two third of our fish stock to have micro plastics in their system, which we then ingest into our own bodies.
Blanchard first approached the manager of the Publix in Orange Beach to see if they would ban plastic bags in their store. When she didn’t get the answer she wanted, she turned to the government.
“I decided to take the problem to the city level,” Blanchard said. “I move that the city of Orange Beach ban plastic bags as a whole to help reduce plastic bags in our oceans and in our Gulf and to take on this great environmental issue giving people the necessary time to adapt to the change.”
Mayor Tony Kennon was receptive to the idea, but gave concerns about the thousands upon thousands of tourists who make their way into town every year who wouldn’t have their own bags in tow.
“When Leave Only Footprints was brought up as an idea my mom said she was very doubtful of its success,” Blanchard said. “At first there was resistance but as time went on it worked out and the project has been great. Tourists know what to expect when they come into town now. I think banning plastic bags can and will be just like that.”
Councilman Jerry Johnson echoed Blanchard’s idea, saying the Leave Only Footprints program would be a great model to follow for plastic bags.
“It’s an education process and If we can come up with a marketing plan like we did with Leave Only Footprints and spread it out,” Johnson said. “I know if put all our heads together it can be another success like Leave Only Footprints.”
Kennon encouraged Blanchard to work with the city over the summer with an internship which will allow her to help the city draft an ordinance to ban plastic bags.
“I’m all ears and I’ve got to be educated and from the mayor’s perspective the practicality of how you institute it, how do you make it work,” Kennon said. “And, how do you deal with 100,000 people who show up and don’t necessarily know they don’t have bags. Is there a way to make that pragmatically work? We would love to have your help.”
