Terry Hershey Bayou Stewardship Award

Thank you Bayou Preservation Association for the 2020 Terry Hershey Bayou Stewardship Award! We are so grateful for being recognized for this award for our award in environmental activism.

We were also interviewed on KHOU 11 along with Dr. Sarah Bernhardt, CEO of the Bayou Preservation Association. You can view that here.

This award is named after Terry Hershey, credited with starting the environmental movement in Houston fighting the Buffalo Bayou Project in Houston. In 1966, she observed an area of Buffalo Bayou ravaged by falling trees and bulldozed undergrowth. She discovered that Harris County was rerouting Buffalo Bayou without notifying the public, an act that would decimate the existing ecosystem. Terry joined the Buffalo Bayou Preservation association and became one of it’s most visible activists, fighting for Houston’s nature throughout her life by lobbying city, state, and country officials, grassroots organizing, and bringing the community to Houston’s bayous.

Without Terry Hershey, the bayous we love and protect would not be the same. We are honored to receive this award, and will strive to uphold Terry Hershey’s legacy in our work.

We spoke to Poe Elementary!

Out of anyone, we will always be the first ones to say that young people can change the world. When we started Bag-Free Bayous at age 9, we were shocked to find the signatures of our petition climbing higher and higher within just a few days. We were astounded when a news station contacted us to speak. That is when we discovered that the world is hungry for young voices, and since then, we have been spreading the word to kids around Houston.

This week, we spoke to first graders at Poe Elementary. It was our first time speaking at an elementary school, and came with some new experiences. Questions from seven-year-olds are much different than questions from thirteen-year olds- for example, we’d never answered “But why do cows eat the plastic bags?”

The first graders we talked to today will be the leaders, workers, and environmentalists of tomorrow. We hope that they know that they don’t have be grown-ups to make a huge difference in this world.

(and why cows eat plastic bags!)

We presented to students at The Kinkaid School!

This week we drove to the Kinkaid School to present at their Celebrate the Earth event for Earth Day. We watched the students read stories about the environment and shared our journey as young environmental activists. Everyone was so welcoming and passionate about the environment! We hope we inspired the students that they are never too young to speak out and make a difference. So excited to see the change these students make in the future! Happy Earth Day!!

Texas Supreme Court Hearing

On January 11, 2018, we attended the Texas Supreme Court hearing of The City of Laredo vs. Laredo’s Merchant’s Association that will determine if it is legal to ban single-use plastic bags. In 2014, Laredo banned single-use plastic bags. In 2015, the Laredo Merchants Association sued the city, arguing that the ban conflicted with state law on waste management.

We spoke on the steps of the Capitol about how plastic bags kill our wildlife, clog our waterways, and pollute our bayous.

Sadly, the Texas Supreme Court ruled against the City of Laredo. Laredo's plastic bag ban was struck down. This precedent pretty much makes it illegal to ban plastic bags in Texas.

So, what now? Bag-Free Bayous was founded with a petition to ban plastic bags in Houston, but we will move forwards. While we are disappointed, we can still take action.

We will continue lobbying with other environmentalists, keep on fighting.

We will focus more on our Bayou Bags, an upcycled alternative to single-use bags that keep waste out of the landfills and bayous while strengthening our community.

But most of all, this is about you. This decision impacts all Texans and their cities. So while we keep on fighting for change with organizations like Texas Campaign for the Environment, you can too!

Use reusable bags when you go to the grocery store. Visit your beautiful bayous. Talk to your friends, start conversations about your environment!

Little changes and big changes make a huge difference.

An Upcycled, Houston-Made Alternative to Single-Use Plastic Bags

Hi! I hope everyone is having a happy holiday season. 

Bag-Free Bayous is going to add an exciting new branch! We recently got a grant of a thousand dollars from the Pollination Project to employ refugee women to sew beautiful, reusable grocery bags from up-cycled materials. The women we are working with are from Community Cloth, a nonprofit dedicated to giving refugee women an income by sewing or knitting bags, clothing, and many other things. To make sure we produce minimal waste, we are using banner material that would've gone to the landfill, and old jeans. The money we make from selling the bags will go towards making more bags, which will create a cycle.

The process for making the bags has been really fun. We started by looking at different types of bag design online. We brainstormed about the elements that people like about bags. We even made a few of our own (very) novice bags, so we would get the feel of the project, hands on! We hammered out what we hoped for in the bags with Kayla, Community Cloth's project manager. We also gave her banner materials from ReUse warehouse, as well as some old jeans. Kayla delivered the materials and our ideas to Khatera, one of the groups most experienced seamstresses. She is originally from Afghanistan. A few weeks later, Kayla came back with Khatera's prototypes. We were amazed by the beauty of the bags. They looked like they belonged at a fancy store in the Galleria. We chose the best elements of each of the prototypes to come up with two solid designs.  

We are now in the next phase of the project. We are brainstorming and testing ways we can sell the bags. We will let you know when we figure it out.

bayou city bag prototype photo.jpeg
Bag Free Bayous photo.jpg
IMAG0131.jpg

Watch out, Capitol!!!

If you read our last post, you will know that we, Caoilin Krathaus and Lila Mankad went to the state capitol to lobby against Senate Bill 103, which would prohibit local government from banning bags.  

Texas Campaign for the Environment invited us to a press conference at the Capitol and invited us to a committee hearing, where we could testify for House Bill 3482, which would allow local government to have bag ordinances. So yet again, we piled in a van at 5 a.m., on April 25, and began the journey to Austin. In the car, we practiced and practiced and practiced what we were going to say for the press conference. Finally, we arrived. We strode through the magnificent doors, through the rotunda, and walked into the little room where the press conference was going to be held. It had a large wooden podium, where we would be reading our speeches, a handful of chairs and a empty place in the back where cameramen stood.

Before we knew it, the press conference started. First, Robin, the head of TCE gave her speech, then introduced us. We talked about reasons for local control on bag bans. Every city has a different reason for a ban, so the cities should be able to decide for themselves if they want a bag ban. For Houston, the reason is that plastic bags clog our gutters, which increases flooding, hurt our wildlife, hang in the trees, and overall makes our Houston uglier. The reason in Kermit, Texas is that cows consume the bags, leading them to a slow and painful death. We spoke of how when plastic bags float down the bayou, they enter the Gulf of Mexico, where sea turtles ingest them, thinking they are jellyfish. We were joined a giant cow, goat, turtle, and plant. The cow also spoke.

In the afternoon, we testified in front of a committee. We spoke again, this time in front of state representatives. 

You can read more and watch the cow testimony here:

See What a Cow Has to Say about Plastic Bags

Lobbying in the Austin Capitol!!

Hi there! As you know, we are Lila Mankad and Caoilin Krathaus. We are 12, and live near Little White Oak Bayou, and it bothers us that it's full of trash. We decided to do something about it, and together, we started a petition to ban plastic bags in Houston. We want Houston to be known for moss hanging in it's trees, not plastic.  We have come far, and currently have about 2,500 signatures.                          

But all of this hard work could be unraveled if Senate Bill 103 passed, which would prohibit local bag ordinances. We couldn't let this bill pass unnoticed. So one early April morning, we, as well as our fathers, packed into the car to go lobby against Senate bill 103, and to lobby for House bill 3482, which would allow cities to have bag ordinances. We marched right into the capitol, through the rotunda, and with Texas Campaign for the Environment, we lobbied in many, many offices. We met a incredible variety of people, and in every office we visited, we delivered our speech. Overall, it was a experience we will never forget. We learned so much that day that we will value for the rest of our lives.

  If you want to hear more about this story, you can click on the article below. 

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/Stop-Houston-s-plastic-bag-trash-11048775.php