Fund Missoula's Fight Against Single-Use Plastics

As of July 29th, this campaign is temporarily suspended.

What do climate change, toxic pollution, and human health all have in common? Single-use plastics. Ready to do something about it? We need your financial help to put single-use plastics on the November ballot in the City of Missoula.

Our goal is to raise $25,000 ASAP to hire paid signature gatherers to collect the 8000 signatures we need before August 19.

To get the Missoula Plastics Ordinance on the ballot, we need the signatures of 8,509 Missoula residents that are registered to vote in the City of Missoula. This is an enormous undertaking and a ginormous opportunity for our community to take action to reduce the harms of unnecessary single-use plastics.

MT Plastic Free Missoula, the volunteer group leading this effort, has been organizing volunteers since late May to collect signatures. We have a mighty cadre of concerned citizens helping out – over 80 Montanans! Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we have struggled to make significant progress. 25% of our collected signatures have been rejected and we are barely 10% of the way to the required 8,509 signatures.

To make this happen, we need a different strategy.

Just this past week a door opened with MontPIRG. MontPIRG is willing to use their organizing acumen and power to help us get the signatures we need. To do this, we need to raise $25,000 so they can hire, train, and deploy a team of signature gatherers over the next 4 weeks.

With this citizen initiative process, change is within reach! We are finding that citizens across Montana are excited to take action to “turn off the tap” on plastic. We know what we need to do and it is doable. We just need the funds now to do it.

We are at the stage with plastics that is similar to when we started learning about the health hazards of lead and asbestos. These materials were once seen as miraculous and were widely used, and then the harm they caused was revealed, and policy actions became necessary to protect life. Scientists and health care professionals are now sounding the alarm about plastics. The Minderoo Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health Report (2023) states: ”It is now clear that current patterns of plastic production, use, and disposal are not sustainable and are responsible for significant harms to human health, the environment, and the economy as well as for deep societal injustices.”

Your donation can help send a clear message: as Montana citizens, we have a constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment and a constitutional duty to maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment. As citizens of the planet, we also have moral responsibilities. Through this initiative we are seizing our power to use our voices in service of our rights, duties, and responsibilities.

We have been fighting to protect Montanans from plastics for years. The reason we can even do this ballot initiative is because we sued the State of Montana for trampling on our constitutional rights AND WE WON! This is our opportunity to use our rights as citizens to DO GOOD FOR ALL MONTANANS. Learn about our journey here.

Donations via check to MT Plastic Free Missoula LLC are preferred (so we can make sure every dollar you give helps us reach out goal).

Thank you for your consideration,

Jeremy Drake, Youpa Stein, and Liz Ametsbichler

The MT Plastic Free Missoula Team