Hello! I’m Naila Ismail
Barnard College Sophomore. Environmentalist. Looking to Make a Difference.
About Me
I am a sophomore at Barnard College planning to pursue a BA in computer science and neuroscience. I enjoy solving problems and am passionate about environmental sustainability. For my Girl Scout Gold Award, I tackled the issue of single-use plastic bag usage in my community. I also worked with my town council members for a plastic bag ban. After-school you can find me playing volleyball on the CHS varsity team, for which I am a captain.
Mission: Ban the Bags
One trillion plastic bags are used annually around the world, each for an average duration of only twelve minutes. It takes at least 500 years for a plastic bag to photodegrade into toxic microplastic particles that contaminate the soil and waterways; these particles enter the food chain when animals ingest them and continue to pollute the environment. Eighty percent of ocean plastic pollution enters the water from land and more than 100,000 marine animals are killed annually due to plastic pollution (Earth Policy Institute).
Plastic bags do not belong in single-stream recycling - the system utilized by both Chatham Borough and Township. The presence of plastic bags in single-stream recycling clogs the machinery, resulting in lower efficiency as the bags must be removed by hand for the machinery to properly function. Therefore, it is crucial that we recycle plastic bags separately. In the United States, according to a study conducted by the Center for Biological Diversity, only 1% of the 100 billion plastic bags used are returned for recycling. By limiting plastic usage and participating in proper recycling methods, the community can greatly minimize its environmental footprint.
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My Initiative
Approach
Recognizing the need for greater awareness of the detrimental effects of single-use plastic bags, I decided to tackle this issue within the Chatham community for my Girl Scout Gold Award. I discovered that the Bags to Benches program by Trex, a recycled materials manufacturer, provides a plastic film and bags recycling challenge for communities with an incentive of a bench made from recycled plastic. This challenge requires participating communities to collect 500 pounds of plastic films and bags (equivalent to about 40,500 plastic bags) within a six month time period.
Community Support
To execute my plastic bag recycling initiative, I reached out to multiple leaders of the community, including members of the Chatham Borough Environmental Commission and the director of Chatham Borough Community Service, to receive their insight and advice on this project. I placed collection bins at the Library of the Chathams as well as Chatham High School. My responsibilities included creating awareness, emptying the collection bins, sorting through the collections to ensure that all items collected were acceptable materials, weighing and tallying the collections, and dropping it off at the Whole Foods in Madison, NJ, a designated location for the plastic bags collection.
Results
The collection and support from the community far surpassed my expectations; I was able to collect over 1,000 pounds of plastic film in just over the course of six months. The collection was so successful that I needed to empty the bins on a daily basis - definitely a good problem to have! The immense amount of participation showed me that there was a need for a plastic bags recycling initiative within Chatham. The positive response and the feedback I received from the community motivated me to expand my efforts beyond the original goal of 500 pounds. The main purpose of my project was to raise awareness within the community. I achieved this goal by providing easily-accessible plastic bag recycling bins and sharing my initiative through the local newspaper, posters, and social media. While my initiative has been a ripple towards the greater wave of the fight against single-use plastic, I hope it has also inspired others to take action towards a more sustainable future.
The Impact
I was surprised that my project generated so much attention and commotion within my community. Through social media and the local newspaper, I was able to share my project with a wider audience. I soon received letters from elected officials and prominent members of the community commending my efforts; this certainly motivated to worker harder. My town’s environmental commission invited me to share my project at their meetings and even offered me membership in the commission to help bring new perspectives to the ongoing environmental initiatives. As news grew about my initiative, I was surprised to see partisan discussions and debates arise from the issue of plastic bag usage. I was then invited to speak at a Chatham Borough Council public hearing in support of a single-use plastic bag ban ordinance. I was really proud to witness the ordinance pass with an unanimous vote and to have contributed to the effort.
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While the ordinance successfully passed in Chatham Borough, our sister town of Chatham Township was yet to pass the ordinance. The Chathams share a common high school, so my friend and I decided to speak at the Chatham Township Council meeting as co-presidents of the CHS Green Team. At a Green Team meeting during school, the club and I had discussed the importance of the ordinance and how much it would be to all of us if the ban were put in place in our community. A group of members decided to attend the meeting since we knew that the presence of young community members at the ordinance vote would be impactful. A few members and I spoke at the meeting in support of the ban and expressed our opinions as to why our community needs the ban. The ordinance passed with a vote of 3-1 and the plastic bag ban had officially been passed in my community!
Video: Speaking at the town hall
Success!
Recycle Bin Sensor
Sorting and emptying the collection bins each evening became part of my daily routine. Community members would often drop off large loads of plastic bags all at once and cause the bins to overfill immediately. Due to these unscheduled large drop-offs, the bin would become full at any time of day. This unpredictability presented a challenge to my pick-up schedule, as I was in school or at my internship for most of the day. The librarians would call me when the bins were full to inform me that the bins needed to be emptied. Juggling my hectic junior year schedule and daily emptying, I began to look for a solution that would allow me to maximize my collection efforts. I also wanted to relieve the librarians from the responsibility of calling me. After doing some reason, I decided that I would make my own IoT scanner that would connect to WiFi and send me text messages when the collection bin was at a particular fill level. I ordered parts online and after about a month full of designing, programming and implementing, I finally had a working prototype! The Environmental Commission and I are very excited to put these sensors to use in cigarette-butt collection bins at the Chatham train station.
"Wow. You really did a lot of work. It was such a pleasure to get to know you. I loved your outreach articles and I think that they alone will make a difference in this community. As you  know, the Environmental Commission is trying hard to pass an ordinance against the use of plastic bags and your work is helping us raise awareness. I hope you continue to join us at Environmental Commission meetings. You are a real asset."Â
-Kate MurphyÂ
Ex Chair, Environment Commision, Chatham Borough
President's Volunteer Service Award
