During the week of 25th September to 2nd October 2010, students of a Municipal School in Pune pledged to make their community plastic bag free. This presentation is a documentation of their efforts. It has also been submitted as an entry for the Design for Change Contest - http://www.designforchangecontest.com

1. ‘ Bags of Paper-Better off Pune’
Our Story of Change
Lt. Smt. Shantabai Ladkat English Medium School,
Pune

2. Step 1: FEEL
 We live in a community in
Pune where the use of
plastic bags is rampant
despite a state-wide ban on
them. We have learnt how
harmful plastic is to the
environment. This problem
bothered us a lot.

3. Learning More
 Our teacher also
showed us a
documentary on the
damage that plastic
does.
 We learned a lot more
about the harmful
effects of plastic
around us.

4. Step 2: IMAGINE
 We discussed ideas
with our teacher and
came up with the
following:
 A street play/skit to
generate awareness.
 Learning how to make
paper bags.
 Giving the paper bags
to the shopkeepers in
our community.
OUR CATCHPHRASE
BAGS OF PAPER – BETTER OFF
PUNE!

5. Why Paper Bags?
 We wanted to provide people with an
alternative to plastic while telling them how
using plastic harms the environment.
 We decided to learn how to make paper
bags so that we could give them to the
shopkeepers in our community who were
still using plastic.

6. STEP 1: Learn how to make paper
bags
STEP 3: SPREAD
Teach women in our community
(self-help groups) how to make
paper bags and facilitate paper bag
sales for them by providing free
paper bag as samples to
shopkeepers.
STEP 3: ADVOCATE
1. Prepare enough sample bags to
give to the shopkeepers in our
community as samples.
2. Stage a skit to generate
awareness.
3. Teaching other school children
how to make paper bags as well.
STEP 4: Convince
shopkeepers to stop giving
plastic bags and start using
paper bags
STEP 2: Make paper bags

7. Step 3: DO
 We learnt how to
make paper bags
from our teacher

8. Making paper bags
 We got help from
Rotary club in Pune,
who donated us extra
newspapers to help
make our bags.
 We prepared different
kinds of bags
according to differing
shopkeepers’ needs.

9. Advocating
 We invited parents
and teachers and
staged a skit about
the dangers of using
plastic bags.

10. Advocating
 We went around
our community with
the paper bags we
had prepared.
 For every paper
bag we gave, we
took 5 plastic bags
from the
shopkeepers.
IMPACT: 500 paper bags given. 2500 Plastic
bags collected.

11. Spreading
 We also spread
this around our
community by
teaching women
how to make paper
bags, so that they
could sell them and
earn money.
IMPACT: 500 paper bags given. 2500 Plastic
bags collected.

12. How we were ‘Changed’
 We learnt the importance of teamwork and
were grateful for the support we got from
so many places.
 Most importantly, we learnt that there is a
solution to all problems and we have the
power to influence things