Project Outline

1. Addressing the issues of plastic alternatives

- Group members: Lucas, Sara, Sarah, Olivia, Anna, Abby, Sean, Cale, Josie,

Riley, Carolyn, Faith

2. Intro

- Plastic pollution affects not only wildlife and our surroundings, but it affects us

too. Plastic pollutants that make it into water affect our water supply and drinking

water, is swallowed by sea creatures which makes its way into the seafood we eat.

This is the same for other wildlife we hunt such as deer, elk and other animals.

Not only does it affect our water and wildlife, it affects our soil. Plastic takes 450

years at least to decompose as well as damaging and contaminating the soil. Not

only does this problem affect our current generation, but it affects all future

generations even more.

3. Stakeholders:

- Independent businesses, such as restaurants (possibly including independent

franchises), are stakeholders. Using plastic alternatives might affect their business

models. For example, it might be more expensive to purchase eating utensils,

cups, or plates. If there is a significant difference in the price of supplies, they

might have to adjust their prices to maintain their profit margins.

- Large corporate chains might see a dramatic difference in the costs of their

supplies. Since many chains run on their brand rather than their products, they

would probably be very interested in maintaining the shape and feel of their
 products. Starbucks, for instance, might be an example of this type of business.

Large chains would also want to make sure that it’s possible to put their logos on

products made from plastic alternatives. On the other hand, many companies

might be interested in rebranding themselves as “eco-friendly” to generate more

business. A switch to plastic alternatives could get a lot of publicity and generate

more revenue for a company.

5. Impact/outcome

- Who will be impacted by your project (top 3) -

- General plastic consumers (normal people using plastics everyday, even

without realizing it, just like us)

- Companies producing the plastics and plastic alternatives

- Companies using the plastic alternatives instead of just normal plastics

- Intended impact: We want to reduce the amount of plastic used commercially,

hopefully setting a trend which will decrease plastic use in our community. If we

create a strong impact locally, it could create a domino effect and impact other

communities besides our own and even large-scale companies. In the long term,

we hope to eradicate non-biodegradable plastic products, which would allow us to

see a huge, lasting environmental impact.

- Who will participate? (sponsors/ volunteers)

- The participants will include experts on plastics in our community, local

businesses to start, plastic producing companies, plastic alternative

companies and the general population.

 - We will take guidance from companies in our community that have

already started to make a change such as Larkburger, MOD pizza and

others.

- Our project mostly affects our top three stakeholders, which are plastic/plastic

alternative producing companies, companies/businesses using the alternatives,

and the general consumers of plastic.

- Evaluation

- Metrics for success - The success will be measured by if we influence a

business (or several) to start using a plastic alternative, or create a plan to

get this goal into motion (ex. A petition, legislative action, movement in

the community, etc.) to reduce the use of plastics in our community and

increase the use of environmentally friendly alternatives.

- Impacts actually measured - We will start a movement to change the way

our local community uses plastics.

- Final evaluation - Our evaluation will seek to further understand our

impact and the effects we had on the community. It will also hopefully

keep going and expanding from there.