Constable: Earth Day just another in Grayslake teen's environmental life
Born on April 22, 1970, as a reaction to smokestacks, oil spills, water pollution, pesticides, urban sprawl, traffic jams, litter and endangered species, Earth Day can seem about as tired as any other 46-year-old in today's busy world. But Earth Day this Friday still has the power to ignite the flames of passion.
As a seventh-grader at Prairie Crossing Charter School in Grayslake, Abby Goldberg didn't spend a single class talking about the environment on Earth Day.
“My school actually had Earth Week,” remembers Abby, now a 16-year-old award-winning environmental activist.
Located in the planned conservation Prairie Crossing community in Grayslake, the school also made Abby and her classmates take their environmental learning to another level.
“Every single student had to come up with a project that would benefit the environment and the community,” Abby remembers.
Her family's home is in a neighborhood that abuts a garbage landfill.
“And on a windy day, the plastic bags are in the trees and everywhere,” says Abby, who turned the issue of plastic bags into the “culminating project” she needed to graduate eighth grade. And that grew into something much bigger.
Last month, Naomi D. Hershiser, Prairie Crossing Charter School's dean of environmental learning, ran into Abby at a “Green Living Fair” in Libertyville.
“She had the table next to our table,” says Hershiser, who used the moment to make an impression on her students. “Look. Abby is still doing her culminating project.'”
At age 12, Abby received national attention for helping get 150,000 online signatures and prodding former Gov. Pat Quinn into vetoing a bill in 2012 that would have prohibited Illinois communities from banning plastic bags. She won awards for her activism, was in demand as a speaker and even spent the summer after eighth grade on an environmental mission with 5Gyres, an activist group that works to remove plastics from the five subtropical ocean currents.
“We started in Bermuda and sailed to Rhode Island,” Abby says, pulling out a souvenir container of gross plastic pollutants. “This is a jar of plastic samples that we pulled from the water.”
Her props for fairs, speeches and presentations can fill a room.
“This is the poster I bring with me to green fairs,” she says of a foldout display.
“This jar is from the nurdle spill in Hong Kong,” she says, explaining that nurdles are small plastic pellets used in the manufacture of plastic products.
“This is my Bag Monster,” she says of a photograph of her standing beside a creature made from the estimated 500 plastic bags an average consumer goes through in a year. She also has a plastic bag chain that stretches far too long to display easily.
“I never expected to get this far,” says Abby, who has earned a reputation as the plastic bag girl. She persuaded the Lake County Board to declare April “Bring Your Own Bag Month,” as a way to encourage shoppers to bring reusable bags to stores, instead of leaving with an assortment of plastic bags.
Parents Jeff and Tracy Goldberg say Abby has influenced their whole family.
“Since she started this project, we compost,” says Tracy Goldberg.
Abby's older brother, Max, 19, a freshman studying aerospace engineering at Iowa State University, and her dad, who says he enjoys spending as much time as possible outside, take many of the photographs and videos Abby uses in her presentations.
The opinion editor for the school newspaper at Grayslake Central High School, where she is a junior, Abby also says she is a passionate lover of animals and has been riding a horse named Monty since she was 10. Her fellow students are passionate about many issues, she says, adding that she thinks the environmental activists are moving in the right direction.
Working with Illinois politicians has taught her that changes don't always come quickly.
“It can be discouraging,” Abby admits. “There are a lot of citizens who are passionate, but, on the other side, there are lobbyists working against you.”
She plans to go to college and study another of her passions — forensic anthropology. “It's interesting to figure out where people come from,” she says.
Having forged a reputation as an environmental activist, Abby says she'll always make that effort part of her life.
“Sometimes I'm guilty,” she says, admitting that she has put herself in situations where her only option is a plastic bag. But she's working to make sure that doesn't happen again.
“I just bought a purse,” Abby says, “so I can start carrying things.”