Hold a Plastic Take-Back on Saturday, July 23rd at Your Local Supermarket!
This Plastic Free July, we hope you’ll join us in working to eliminate unnecessary, polluting single-use plastic packaging by hosting a Plastic Take-Back event at a store of your choice near you on Saturday, July 23rd. We’ve created loads of sample materials and a step-by-step guide to help make this process easy, effective and FUN!
Sign up here to host a take-back and we’ll follow up to provide additional guidance and support.
Plastic Free July® is a global movement that helps millions of people be part of the solution to plastic pollution.
QUICK LINKS
Step-by-Step Guide | Sample RSVP Forms: Google, Facebook, Action Network | Sample Letter to Store CEO | Sample News Advisory | Sample News Release | Sample Run-of-Show | Social Media Graphics | Flier
Step-by-Step Guide
Whether this is your first in person action or your fortieth, we aim to make it easy. We’ve drafted a detailed, step-by-step guide to walk you through the planning of your plastic take-back and help ensure that your event goes smoothly and has maximum impact.
Sample RSVP Pages & Forms
A good turnout will make your event more fun and effective. Make a page showing the date, time, location of your plastic take-back that includes a simple form to allow people to RSVP so you can collect their emails to follow up with them to provide instructions about starting to save their plastic packaging waste and touch base as you get closer to the event date. If you have an email list, you should also add anyone who RSVPs via your form to your email list.
You can make an event RSVP page using Facebook, Google Forms or Action Network and use it as a central place to collect RSVPs and promote your event.
RESOURCES:
Sample RSVP page (Googleforms)
Sample event page (Facebook)
Sample registration page (Action Network)
SAMPLE GRAPHICS & FLIER
Your event will be more effective if you get a good turnout - aim for 25-50 people - so it’s essential to promote your event (and your RSVP page!) early and often. We’ve made some sample graphics you can use to help promote your event. You can view and download the graphics here >>.
Template Letter To Store CEO
As part of your event, you’ll deliver a letter to the store manager urging the store CEO to commit to reducing their plastic packaging significantly. We’ve written a sample letter that hits all the important points and includes plenty of relevant statistics and information. You can simply customize it by filling in the highlighted blanks, though you should feel free to adapt it further if you wish to make it more specific to the chain you’ve chosen and the location you live in or prefer to emphasize different points or aspects of your experience at the store.
Sample News Advisory & News Release
Your in-person event will have a much greater impact if you’re able to generate some news coverage of it! Our guide provides some helpful pointers on building a media list and how and when to alert them to your event. We’ve also prepared a template news advisory and news release - all you need to do is customize them with the details of your own event and location.
Sample Run-Of-Show
A run-of-show is a helpful document that walks through the sequence of events that will occur on the day of and lets everyone know who should do what, when and where. We’ve prepared a sample run-of-show to help you get a sense of what it should include. At least a week before your event, send the run-of-show to everyone who will be involved and schedule a time to meet with your group several days ahead of the event to walk through it together. Although you can do this meeting virtually, it’s probably helpful for at least a few people to meet up at the store so you can all be prepared about what happens where - scout out your meeting spot, figure out the best place to take photos, make sure it’s clear where people should park, etc.
Contact Information for Chain Store CEO’s & Social Media Profiles
As part of your event, you’ll deliver a letter to the store manager urging the store CEO to commit to reducing their plastic packaging significantly. The first step is to do some research to find out who the CEO of the store you’re targeting is and where you can mail (and/or email) the final letter, in addition to handing a printed copy of it to the store representative at your take-back event. We also recommend that you tag the store in any posts you do on social media. Start by perusing our spreadsheet of national and regional grocery store chains and their leaders - hopefully, yours is on the list! If not, you’ll need to do some digging of your own.
