Local student wins national environmental scholarship

August 19, 2010 – Dryden local, Michelle Arseneault is one of four outstanding students to be awarded with an ECO Canada Scholarship.

Every year ECO Canada awards four Canadian students with $2,500 towards their first-year tuition in an environmental program at any Canadian post-secondary institution.

Scholarships are awarded to individuals who have shown leadership in her or his community in the areas of environmental protection, conservation and preservation of natural resources, or environmental sustainability. Qualified students are chosen based on a reference letter and an essay about their environmental accomplishments and ambitions.

Michelle Arseneault combined her entrepreneurial spirit with her environmental values to create a program that changed the community of Dryden, Ontario forever.  Taking the basic idea of using less plastic bags, Michelle initiated a campaign named One Less Plastic Bag that grew to be much more.

Over the past 2 years, Michelle has requested retail stores not hand out plastic bags to customers on Earth Day. The results were so successful that One Less Plastic Bag became an inspiration to move ahead with BYLAW NO. 20-10, A BYLAW TO PROHIBIT THE SALE OR FREE DISTRIBUTION OF PLASTIC BAGS. If the bylaw passes its third and final reading, Sioux Lookout will become the first community in Ontario to enforce such a bylaw and encourage waste reduction.

Michelle hopes to become a soil conservationist or soil sustainability researcher and educator.  She sees soils as the foundation of our ecosystems and is interested in the sustainability of agricultural practices, in particular, with food in developing countries.  Michelle has enrolled at the University of Guelph in a Bachelor of Science program with a focus in agriculture.

To follow the journey of One Less Plastic Bag, check out www.onelessplasticbag.ca.