Recycling your bags in Casco Viejo: The Right Bag.

martes, 20 de julio de 2010

Casco Viejo Panama
Panama Casco Antiguo
At Panama City`s Historic District


Last week we went to an interesting event hosted by Fundación Natura and designer Gabriela Batista: it was the launch of a campaign to create awareness about the importance of eliminating plastic bags and use more durable ones.

They presented a study showing that Panama uses and throws away about 500 million plastic bags a year. That`s a lot for a population of 3.5 million people. Problems of water contamination, marine wildlife threat and just simply our health are on the table here.

What can we do? as usual when problems are too big, taking a local approach that hopefully "catches fire and spread" seems to be the most reasonable course of action.

The artist designed very nice, trendy bags for shopping groceries, etc, in an attempt to make them "fashionable".

But the event reached further out. They had done art workshops with kids where they painted their own bags and their campaign will aim to try and change the attitude of locals by providing them with durable bags that can be re used.

For each bag purchased, two bags will go specifically to San Felipe`s community.

The artist will be working with the Oficina del Casco Antiguo and with AVACA (Casco Antiguo`s Neighborhood Association) to spread the word and educate.

As the phrase goes "That's one small step for a man, a giant leap for mankind"!!!

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