Go Green
Elisabeth Magee
Com 416
For my Leap project, I made a poster to help the DoSomething’s Environmental program, which is pushing for people to stop producing waste and to go green by shopping ethically, recycling and reusing items, and joining clean-ups. I think this is a very important topic that affects our daily lives and our future. We produce so much waste in our country, by wasting water, food, clothing, and more. According to the We Don’t Waste organization, “as much as 40 percent of all food goes unsold or uneaten in the United States”. There are a lot of people in our country who are starving or living in food deserts who could benefit from what we waste. We produce so much plastic in our country, which ends up in landfills or the ocean. The plastic in the ocean endangers not only the environment but also the animals in it. For example, there are dead sea birds found with stomachs full of plastic, dying from starvation. Another thing we waste is clothing, according to Earth.org, “In America alone, an estimated 11.3 million tons of textile waste end up in landfills on a yearly basis.” We waste so much in our country. To save our planet we need to stop wasting so much and go green. Some of the ways to accomplish this is to be more sustainable by doing things like shopping ethically, buying less meat, giving your money to companies who care for the environment, thrifting clothing instead of buying into fast fashion, and buying reusable items like reusable bags and water bottles. It not only benefits you by saving money but also benefits the planet by cutting back on our waste.
Throughout our class, I’ve learned new tactics to create propaganda and influence people. One of the strategies that I wanted to accomplish within my poster was to make people feel like they were responsible for this issue. So, I used tactics that would draw people in by using words like “Do Your Part” and “Help Save Our Earth” to reach the audience and evoke emotion. Another goal of mine was to make the poster look eco-friendly, so at a quick glance, you could tell what it was about. I used the color green throughout it and added a lot of symbols that people would recognize, like the recycling symbol in the middle of the poster, and also symbols that matched the words I included. For example, when I wrote clean-up as one of the ways to do your part, I included a cartoon of someone cleaning up trash, and when I wrote shop ethically, I included a reusable bag. These symbols help push the point I’m trying to plant in people’s heads. Another tactic I used was to add simple information within my poster to bring people in, which was a statistic about how much waste we are producing as a country. It not only informed my audience about the issue going on and how big our impact is but also used ethos by adding credibility to my poster. Using these tactics helped me push my cause and influence more people to go green.
My target audience was teenagers, young adults, and millennials because this is a topic that is prevalent across our generations. People have been taught throughout school that they should be better to the environment by doing things like recycling and producing less waste. I included cartoons and images that are trendy, like the Earth cartoon, to appeal to the younger generations. I also believe that these are the generations that are able to make the most change, so it’s important to target them. The older generation, the baby boomers, might not be as likely to change their old habits and also might not care about the consequences of our wasteful habits. However, the younger generation is going to live on this planet longer and are going to face even more of the effects of our waste and climate change if we don’t do something about it.
Making my own form of propaganda was very interesting. I had to put a lot of thought into the little details, and it makes me think about how other forms of propaganda are so complex and could contain so much that could influence you, and you might not even notice. I liked that I had the creative freedom to play around and see what worked best to catch people’s eyes. I enjoyed the experience of creating my own propaganda and putting the tactics into practice. I think it’s important to practice these concepts to really understand how they work and how many possibilities there are to influence others. It’s also beneficial to put these tactics to practice for a good cause and realize how you could be helping many other organizations and campaigns going on.
Works Cited
National Overview: Facts and Figures on Materials, Wastes and Recycling …, www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials. Accessed 28 Sept. 2023.
“Saving Food • Protecting the Planet • Feeding People.” We Don’t Waste, 18 Sept. 2023, www.wedontwaste.org/?gclid=CjwKCAjwyNSoBhA9EiwA5aYlb-yY_MIh27ZLYanvg-HW8Or-ZfIH2e4UERb5Wi3giMtKXPjbNLnHzRoC5scQAvD_BwE.
“Total Water Use in the United States Completed.” Total Water Use in the United States | U.S. Geological Survey, www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/total-water-use-united-states. Accessed 28 Sept. 2023.
Igini, Martina. “10 Concerning Fast Fashion Waste Statistics.” Earth.Org, 21 Aug. 2023, earth.org/statistics-about-fast-fashion-waste/#:~:text=3.,landfills%20on%20a%20yearly%20basis.
“Let’s Do This!” Let’s Do This! | DoSomething.Org, www.dosomething.org/us/collections/yasss-green. Accessed 28 Sept. 2023.
Hobbs, Renee. Mind over Media: Propaganda Education for a Digital Age. W. W. Norton & Company, 2020.
