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Business students at the University of Maryland were assigned a project that required them to apply business principles to a social issue, and what they did opened the eyes to other students around them.
Katherine Harris, who worked alongside two other business students, said “We’re basically just trying to get everybody to ban the bag,” when questioned about her reasons for making reusable shopping bags a part of the project.
And the students are on to something. According to researchers, plastic bags have become a major issue for the environment, spurring many cities to pass bans on the bags. “They could be recycled,” said Harris, “but it’s adding unnecessary objects to trash and landfills, which are already taking up so much space in the environment that they shouldn’t be.” Harris and the other two students set up their booth in front of the McKeldin Library and within two hours, sold 23 reusable shopping bags for $3.
“It’s good to see that more and more people are becoming aware of the horrible effects plastic bags are having on our environment,” says a retailer of fruit shaped reusable shopping bags. “And the fact that students understand the impact they can have is tremendous.”
Harris, who is a sophomore majoring in supply chain management and marketing, says the idea to sell the reusable bags came when Maryland switched to single stream recycling. She found out that the University of Maryland doesn’t recycle plastic bags because of the cost, and many of them end up in landfills.
That’s bad news for the environment because according to the Environmental Protection Agency, people in the United States used about 133 million tons of plastic in 2013, but only 9 percent of that plastic was ever recycled. “Imagine the amount of plastic bags students use every day, whether they’re buying something at the Cambridge Community Center convenience store or Target or getting something to go from the diner,” Harris said.
“Consumers can do their part, too,” says the retailer. “If every person took reusable shopping bags to the store instead of relying on plastic or paper bags, the amount of waste produced every year would be significantly reduced.”
David Kirsch, the director of the Social Innovation Fellows Program which Harris is a part of, says there is a lot of interest in the social component of entrepreneurship because students want to know how entrepreneurs can help the world a better place.
“The students at the University of Maryland are on to something,” says the retailer. “And they ought to be acknowledged for their part in helping spread the word.”
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Release ID: 93867