About us
Environment Rhode Island is a statewide, citizen-based environmental advocacy group.
About the campaign
Plastic pollution is a growing problem facing marine ecosystems such as Narragansett Bay. Single-use plastic bags are among the most common types of this litter found in Rhode Island coastal cleanups - and Rhode Island uses hundreds of millions of them every year. These bags never biodegrade, posing a long-term threat to the Bay and its wildlife.
Nothing we use for five minutes should pollute the Bay for future generations. Luckily, Rhode Island can be a leader on this issue by banning these plastic bags - but first we need to build public support.
We need you
We can ban plastic bags if we elevate the public support for and engagement in this issue. Elected officials are only going to act if they know people care about this - so we need to go out there and talk to as many people as possible.
Volunteering with us
This is a dynamic campaign, and needs and opportunities may change as the issue develops. Currently we have two main opportunities:
- Field volunteers: We need people to educate the public and collect petitions by going door-to-door in key towns and legislative districts. We'll be meeting in our Providence office and going out in teams twice a week: Thursday 3 - 6 and Friday 12 - 3. Transportation helpful but not necessary.
- Office volunteers: We've collected thousands of petitions already, but we need to get them databased and catalogued in order to use them effectively. This is more flexible in terms of scheduling, and could be done from our Providence office at almost any time during weekday working hours.
