Baltimore Beyond Plastic rally at City Hall

February 07, 2018

Nearly 200 students from a dozen Baltimore City schools converged at City Hall on February 6 for a rally to support legislation that would ban polystyrene food containers within Baltimore. The rally was organized by Baltimore Beyond Plastic, a youth-led program with goals of reducing plastic pollution in Baltimore while empowering the youth voice, a demographic that is frequently underrepresented in our city and across the world.

The group is led by youth sustainability interns through the Baltimore Office of Sustainability. The interns are supported by BCF through a small stipend. The interns spend time traveling throughout Baltimore and sharing their work with community associations, elected leaders and other advocates and interested individuals in the city.

The February 6 rally also included a press conference with a number of city councilmembers supportive of the ban. Following the rally, students testified in front of a City Council committee reviewing the polystyrene ban legislation, and also wrote letters to state legislators in Annapolis (a similar statewide ban bill is under consideration there).

Following the rally, City Council President Bernard "Jack" Young announced his support of the legislation, reversing the position he held previously.