Refusing Refuse
by Steffani Jemison
Wong decided to make her own DIY kit, one that teenagers (her target market) can use to create personalized home accessory products—like wall 
pockets, room dividers, and lamp covers—out of old plastic shopping bags. Teens can collect used plastic bags and reassemble them to create a room divider, wall pocket, or lamp cover with the help of the kit, which is made from recycled, biodegradable cloth and doubles as a stylish reusable shopping bag. The finished product can also be disassembled: the reusable bag can be recovered for shopping, of course, and the plastic bags can be claimed for the next home accessory creation. She called her project REfUSE—get it? –a play on the word “refuse,” which can mean either an oppositional action (to refuse) or a synonym for waste.
Why focus on teenagers? It was the obvious choice, Wong explains. After all, “they're the ones who will be affected by the environment over the next couple of decades.” And in order to push teenagers to be “sustainability-conscious,”
Wong says, environmental activists have to create “a connection between teenagers and the products that matter to them.” In other words, the hands-on aspect of the project hits teens by getting under their skin, encouraging sustainable applications in all of their everyday activities. And, Wong is quick to point out, branding is also important: if the kits are featured in the window display at a store that teens think is cool, they're more likely to pay attention. That's where Pop Sustainability comes in. With the help of Pop Sustainability's partners in the fashion industry, Wong hopes to advertise the kits in window displays at brand name New York City stores.
“Jenny's energy is such an important contribution to the movement of sustainability,” enthuses Kim Heismann, Executive Director of Pop Sustainability. “Pop Sustainability fully encourages and believes in Jenny's ideas and I personally look forward to seeing if we can actually make this a viable product among consumers.” For Wong, who plans to start her own design firm someday, REfUSE is the perfect way to educate young adults and inspire creativity on a mass scale—a recipe for a killer senior thesis. And she also gets to leave her permanent stamp of style—the shopping bags are infinitely reusable, after all!—on New York City.
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Young People Changing the World
© 2004 POP SUSTAINABILITY
