According to The Environmental Protection Agency in 2017, about 94.17 million tons of
garbage was recycled in the United States (www.epa.gov) . When people think of garbage they think of landfills and the green recycling bins. There is one woman that is making garbage a high end fashion connection. Her name is Elizabeth Tran, a pageant contestant in the 2018 Miss Miami.
She made headlines in the Miami Herald for her dress and her platform on changes in the environment. She made the dress out of a black garbage bag, and it worked. After winning, Miss Miami, she took on Miss Florida with the same eco-friendly fight, and she won. While she didn’t wear an eco-friendly gown, she stood her ground and promoted her organization Teens Go Green. An organization that she started when she was twelve years old. (https://teensgogreenglobal.org) .
Her organization has the simple goal make the world a better place for all to live. The organizationfollows the four R’s Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and respect. Elizabeth wants one thing, the world to help her protect our precious planet. She started to make dresses at the tender age of 13 for fun and to wear around the house. She started simple with newspaper hats and built up to dresses. She never imagined being in a pageant with one of her corrections.
The message she wants to send is the excessive waste production is an ongoing problem in our world that we don’t recognize, because most of us garbage is “out of sight out of mind. We can do something to reduce the amount of waste we collect regularly by following the hierchy of reduce, then reuse, then recycle.
Elizabeth is calling all teenagers to start going green on their own. They can do this in Simple ways by using reusable shopping bags, reduce energy consumption and finally reduce waste creatively. Finally, encouraging people to do the same thing. “No one person can do it alone but if we each follow our own but if we each follow our own hearts and inclinations we find its’s the little things that create a healthy future and sustainable environment” John Denver. Per the EPA, the age group that often recycles the most is the older generation of 55 years and older. Through Elizabeth’s powerful message maybe we can change how we view our world and take better care of it. If everyone recycles and reuses items in a new way we can get rid of the landfills. We can live a healthy clean life, that everyone desires.
Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Tran
Infographic provided by www.epa.gov
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