Opportunity to Take Action! - Bring Your Own Bag Survey

[Steve Attinger]

Hi All,

I wanted to pass along an email from Lori Topley, the City's Solid
Waste Program Manager. She is looking for some volunteers to help with
an easy but very important community survey, which will only take a
few hours of your time. In exchange for our help, Lori will give Green
Mountain View 200 reusable, City-branded shopping bags that can be
used at the Art & Wine Festival or other events.

This is a great opportunity to directly assist the City's work to
reduce single-use carry-out shopping bags.

Thanks,
Steve
---------

Dear Green Mountain View:

Would you like to help in the effort to reduce the number of single-
use bags in Mountain View and Santa Clara County?

BayROC (Bay Area Recycling Outreach Coalition) is a collaboration of
staff representing over 40 San Francisco Bay Area cities, counties and
other public agencies working together on waste reduction and buy-
recycled concepts through a variety of media campaigns which promote
personal action and behavior change. The over 40 cities and counties
contribute funds that pay for regional media buys, jointly organized
press events, as well as the development of print ads and articles for
local newspapers, chamber publications and recycling and garbage
company newsletters.

The media campaign planned to begin September 2009 is Bring Your Own
Bag. In order to track the effectiveness of the campaign,
observational surveys are planned at supermarkets in cities in all 9
counties before and after the campaign. I need volunteers to help
with surveys in Mountain View. They are very simple and do not
involve any interaction with supermarket shoppers, as outlined in the
specifics below. In order to do surveys at 4-6 supermarkets, I would
need 8 to 12 volunteers (to cover two exits at each store). We will
survey for one hour on one day in July and one day in January and
possibly one more day in May (as we are planning a more localized
Santa Clara County campaign in April 2010). Different volunteers can
work each time, it doesn’t have to be the same people for each survey.

In exchange for your assistance, I can offer to Green Mountain View
200 large reusable shopping/tote bags for use at your Art and Wine
booth or other events. The bags are black, made from 85% recycled PET
bottles and have the City of Mountain View logo on one side and the
General Plan logo on the other.

If you are interested, please let me know by June 23. Thanks!

BYOB Survey Process

- Choose any day and time in July to conduct the survey (the follow up
survey in January will need to be conducted on the same day of the
week and time). I am thinking of Saturday July 18 or 25.
- Meet at a designated location prior to survey start to review survey
procedures.
- Disperse to survey locations, one surveyor at each exit at each
store.
- Surveyor stands or sits in a place where customers exiting the store
can be easily seen. For one hour, count and tally the number and type
of bags shoppers are leaving with, using the tally sheet provided (see
attached). No talking necessary.
- Turn tally sheets in soon after.


Lori Topley
Solid Waste Program Manager
City of Mountain View
500 Castro Street
Ph: 650-903-6488
Fx: 650-903-6499
lori....@mountainview.gov
www.mvrecycle.org