Plastic Free July Interview with Alma Pena - Jr. Miss Texas Galaxy 2020

Can you please introduce yourself to our readers

-My name is Alma Pena. I am a 14 year old 9 th grader from Rio

Grande City, Texas in the United States. I’m the creator of STARR

PROJECT, a plastic only recycling project I started 2 years ago.

What was the reason you chose an Eco platform?

I wasn’t looking for a platform when I started STARR PROJECT.

Starr County is a small community where we don’t currently have

a recycling center/ facility. When I found out that my city didn’t

have a recycling center, I got to work. I didn’t choose my platform,

my platform chose me.

What eco projects have you been doing during your reign?

This past Earth Day I was able to do a “Think Global, Act Local

Clean Up” I had 30 queens around the world pledge at least an

hour of their time to clean up an area in their community. I was

able to do a clean-up myself with my friends and cousins on the

side of the road in Rio Grande City. “Think Global, Act Local” is the

slogan for Starr Project. Therefore it was the perfect name for my

Earth Day Clean Up project.

July in the U.K is plastic free month it’s in place to highlight the harm of single

use plastic and encourages people to go plastic free for the whole month. How

will you be doing this in July?

I will continue doing what I do. I will continue to collect plastic

from everyone who supports STARR PROJECT. I will continue to

encourage people to do what is right for our planet, which can be

as simple as putting a water bottle in the recycling bin.

Why is reducing plastic use so important to you and our planet?

It’s important to reduce the single use of plastic because we only

have one planet. We don’t have time to start later, it needs to be

done NOW. I’m not thinking just about myself. You have the future

generations to think about. What are they going to do with our Earth

after so much destruction? The time is now because there is no

planet B.

Having a plastic free awareness month is amazing but we should be doing

this more, as well as other ways to help protect the environment. Can you

give us your top tips on how to be eco-friendly?

My advice to anyone who wants to be eco-friendly is to ease into

new habits. For example, remembering bringing reusable bags for

produce to the grocery store. That slowly becomes second hand

nature such as other eco-friendly habits like recycling. The

important thing to remember is that these little things make an

impact to our world. And, isn’t that what we all want to do?