Megan Talley and Glenn Robinson, co-founders of Bags For the People, show off some of their work. — Photo by Kevin Armento

It could be said — albeit shortsightedly — that a heterosexual male’s day which begins with a baby shower ought not be followed by a sewing circle.  Any one of these two activities, in isolation, emanates a small enough dosage of estrogen to be tolerable to the average male, but when scheduled back-to-back, one could understandably be found lacking confidence in his ability to endure.

Not so for this straight guy!  After attending a co-worker’s baby shower in the morning, a friend accompanied me to the bag-making event (sewing circle) at 3rd Ward on Morgan Ave. Monday night, put on by Bags for the People, a non-profit that works to provide a re-usable alternative to plastics.  (I also heard the event facetiously referred to as a "Sweatshop Social," which I must say rolls off the tongue easier, and for which I bear a growing affection.)  The creators of Bags for the People — Megan Talley, Glenn Robinson, and Kelly Martin, who plan on making the event monthly — first saw a need for re-usable bags after going through hundreds of plastics every day at their Union Square Farmer’s Market tent (several hundred more at the tents around them), and subsequently saw a feasible (and affordable) opportunity to provide an alternative in the clever use of recycled clothing.

The event itself lived up rather brilliantly to the term "social function," what with the table of food and homemade beer (fantastic!), and the mellow Bitches Brew-ambient bass-and-sax jazz duo in the corner, serenading the twenty or so of us who traded turns on the seven sewing machines spread out around the room, while others sifted through the big pile of fabric scraps (the event was BYOF, though there were more than enough leftovers with which to accent your bag).

The bags we were there to make were ideally handbags (copies of instructions could be found all around the room), which one could take home for personal use, or donate back to their cause for use at the Farmer’s Market. Hesitantly, I offered mine for the cause; no word yet on whether it has been deemed usable, but my money says it will be rejected by patrons, as it ended up falling more into the abstract variety of handbag than the functional.

Most striking, indeed most invigorating, was to observe the proactive and positive approach the group has taken to promoting ecological and environmental awareness.  Admittedly, even for an avid supporter, this is one of the most inherently unsexy causes on the world’s plate…just shy of bank reform.  How does one appeal to a populace so ingrained with the habit of unrestrained consumption (and equally resistant to curbing the habit) on the need for conservation?

While it is clearly important and useful to promote public awareness about the global climate crisis, I think it’s important to consider the value of something like a Sweatshop Social as well.  Few would dispute the maxim that participation, even in a seemingly insignificant fashion like bag-making, breeds care.  To know that your drawstring-bag or satchel will be handed to a shopper in Union Square (not my bag, but yours perhaps), and to imagine that shopper asking about its origins — and perhaps learning something about the benefits of reusing in the process — does indeed create a sense of personal importance that has been rarely publicized in the campaign for conservation. 

We are told so often of the need for world governments to come together and work for a solution to curb gas emissions, overgrowing trash dumps, etc., but there has been little put forth about personal, proactive efforts one can make beyond turning off the lights when you walk out of a room, and recycling newspapers and beer bottles.  It strikes me that these efforts, while important, do not stir up that same sense of camaraderie.  While I was at the Sweatshop Social, I overheard conversations about environmental issues, but I also heard conversations about bag designs, film, and good local bars, I heard jazz music in the background, had a beer in my hand, and learned how to sew (sort of).  Socializing while volunteering for the environment is certainly preferable to just volunteering for the environment, and the difference between the two is not insignificant.

If you were to sail the North Pacific Ocean, not too far off the coast of Hawaii, you would soon see around you an abundance of strewn floating garbage.  Below it, to a depth of about thirty feet, exists the world’s largest dump: photodegraded plastic particles, weighing up to six times that of its neighboring zooplankton, and whose collective size doubles that of the United States.  It is called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and it has been estimated recently that in the next ten years this "floating dump" will double in size.  Fish and seabirds often mistake the plastic for food, and thus it enters the food chain, retarding and likely damaging ocean life.

Yes, but what can I do about it?