Youth Environmental Action Summit

This October, we brought our vision for a trash free future to the Youth Environmental Action Summit hosted by Anne Arundel Community College at North County High School in Glen Burnie.

We shared legislative successes (like HB277/SB96  which passed in 2025 and requires installation of water bottle refill stations with drinking fountains in new construction) as well as policy ideas to reduce litter and plastic pollution in the future. The students were particularly engaged with our display on tethered bottle caps and the information we shared on a new policy in the EU that requires bottles to be sold with attached or “tethered” caps. We’re studying the potential for similar policies here to improve bottle designs to prevent bottle cap litter and support recycling.

Students had thoughtful questions for Trash Free Maryland and the other visiting environmental organizations and local agencies. Students also had insightful suggestions for solving environmental challenges, including excessive packaging waste, water quality protection, microplastic pollution, land and species conservation, etc.

Student Project Showcase

Student’s also showcased their sustainability projects. They have been focusing on product packaging redesign — identifying the environmental impacts of real product packaging and developing and testing more environmentally sustainable prototypes. The designs were so exciting and relate to some of the same packaging redesign challenges Maryland’s new packaging extended producer responsibility program (SB901) should address.

Students reimagined and built working prototypes for packaging that used less material, limited or eliminated single-use plastic, reduced multi-material use, and enhanced recyclability or reusability. Check out projects the students shared with us!

Students redesigned packaging for practical items to foods to toys and games. Above are creative examples of improved packaging for scissors, chip bags, playing cards, and Labubu toys.

We had a great time and always learn from our conversations with students. We’re looking forward to seeing what they do next! Thank you for inviting us!