Via Environmental Leader, the kind of story I admit to being a sucker for: kids expending great effort and changing the policies of a large company. In this case, a 10-year-old girl to started a petition to get Jamba Juice, the smoothie chain, to eliminate its Styrofoam cups. Mia Hansen—who should receive an “A” on her essay “What I did on my summer vacation” this coming semester—started the petition on Change.org, an online campaign platform in which she urged the chain to switch to an environmentally friendly alternative.
Mia’s petition, titled “Jamba Juice: Stop using Styrofoam cups that kill animals!,” asserts that “in the ocean, several animals think that this product is food, so when they go to eat it, the Styrofoam can kill them!
Yes, well, that’s one of Styrofoam’s problems, but A for effort. The petition received more than 130,000 signatures, and Jamba Juice itself contacted Miss Hansen to let her know that, in 2013, they would indeed be phasing out Styrofoam in favor of paper cups. (Jamba Juice, by the way, already has phased out Styrofoam cups in places like Seattle that have banned the material.)
The company says that it had been working for over a year prior to the petition to create a more suitable and sustainable cup.
OK, so maybe the petition didn’t necessarily sway anyone’s opinion, but kudos to Miss Hansen—and to all the kids out there who are effecting change by speaking up and speaking out.