The happy occasion was the announcement of the three winners of a town-wide design contest for Westport's first environmentally correct reusable bag, intended as one way to permanently replace the lightweight plastic bags given out by the thousands each day at Westport's retail checkout counters, soon to become a thing of the past when Westport's ban on plastic bags goes into effect on March 19.
The contest winners were picked from 15 finalists from three categories which included an adult, a high school student and an elementary school student. First Selectman Gordon Joseloff announced the winners, saying he was proud of the role the RTM played in initiating and passing the new ordinance.
Regional interest in the initiative is growing, said Joseloff, indicating that town officials in Wilton had expressed an interest in Westport's new efforts and may soon initiate an ordinance of their own.
Jonathan Kunitz, an RTM member and one of four District Four sponsors of the ordinance, said he had received numerous inquiries, some from as far away as Portland, Oregon.
The winners of the contest were Sandy Schulze in the adult category, Ross Gendels in the Staples High School category and Anna Daytz in the K-8 category.
Paradoxically, Sandy Neva Schulze, a graphic artist from Stamford, received the news of her win on the same day she found out she was let go of her job as a graphic artist in Stamford. Schulze, who intends to become an independent designer in her own company, said she designed her entry in half an hour on Adobe Illustrator. Schulze's design features a stylized tree with leaves formed by various sized dots in several shade of green forming each of the continents in the world. Schulz learned about the contest from Sheri McMahon, a Westport friend who is her partner in her new business.
Ross Gendels, a Staples High School senior, created a design with 11 thin brown trees with geometric shapes in the background in several shapes and colors. He used Adobe Illustrator and said his design took him two days to create. Gendels is on his way to art school in the fall and has already received placement in two schools he is pleased with.
Anna Daytz, aged 10, designed her entry the old fashioned way. She hand-illustrated her idea, which has BYO Bag in large multi-colored letters with the phrase "reduce reuse recycle" in a circular pattern in the middle. She was very happy to win, and careful to give credit to a friend who suggested using a global theme in the lettering.
The winners were selected from a total of 141 entries, over half of which were from students in Westport schools. The concept had been embraced by many of Westport's art teachers and several classes were asked to submit entries as a school project.
Winners were selected by a jury of eight Westporters, who first whittled the 141 entries to 15 finalists whose work was shown several weeks ago at HSBC in Westport. Designs will be shown at Max's Art Supplies in February and at the Westport Public Library in March.
The bags will be sponsored by the Westport Chamber of Commerce and Town Fair Tires and will be distributed to retailers throughout Westport for use when the ban begins.
Plastic bags will soon be illegal, as Westport's historic ban on retailers use of plastic bags goes into effect on March 19. While paper bags will be an acceptable alternative, the ban is really intended to encourage the use of recyclable bags, and the aforementioned contest was held to entice the public to get involved early in the six-month education stage and create artwork for Westport's first reusable bag, one that will be 14" x 16" in size, will fold up to an unimaginably tiny little package when empty, and best of all, will sport a green themed BYO Bag logo with Westport's name emblazoned proudly on it.