Northampton Public Schools, Massachusetts
During spring break, students and volunteers tied the ropes together and assembled the ball ready for the Earth Day celebration. A total of 18,079 bags were collected forming a rope approximately 6 miles long! The ball weighed approximately 270 pounds. The ball is now being displayed at local schools as an educational tool.The next phase of the project is to involve the entire community in the project and try and beat the current Guinness World Record. At the same time signatures are being collected for a petition which will be submitted to the City Council.We received a huge amount of media coverage which means that we successfully raised awareness about the negative impacts of plastic bags on our environment. We hope that all the press will help us achieve our final goal of getting Northampton to become a “bring your own bag district”.
This project was coordinated by Green Action in Northampton Schools, GREEN Northampton and the Center for EcoTechnology coordinated this project.