On April 4, the State Museum of Nature of Armenia hosted a workshop within the framework of “Say no to plastic bag” project implemented through the UNDP/GEF Small Grants Programme funding. The event participants were representatives from the Ministry of Environment, people who were interested in nature protection, including schoolchildren from the secondary schools of Kotayk region.

As per various estimates, in Armenia around 60 milion plastic bags reach the landfill each month, the main cause of which is the shopping made by the residents. It is essential to ensure both state oversight and demonstrate individual efforts to promote the behavioral change refusing the use of plastic bags.

“We all should embark on such changes starting from ourselves by sorting the waste, refusing plastic, but it is very important that the state exercises control over that,” Emma Midyan, pupil of 11th grade.

During the workshop the SGP grantee, “Sustainable Innovation Center” NGO President Mane Avetisyan introduced sewing of reusable bags to the schoolchildren, who started sewing the bags enthusiastically, and at the end took the final product home, saying no to plastic bags.

“It is very important that you also try to persuade your family members to refrain from plastic,” the representative of the Ministry of Environment Artur Ghavalyan stated in his speech addressing the schoolchildren.

Thus, another event took place within the campaign against plastic as a step towards formulating a culture of replacing plastic bags with the reusable ones.