Early in the 1988-1989 school year, Tanja Vogt was reading two very different works of literature that came together for her. She was studying Thomas Paine in her West Milford, New Jersey, high school social studies class, when she came across a newspaper article about polystyrene, commercially known as Styrofoam. Styrofoam, commonly used for food containers, is not the best thing to happen to the environment: It doesn’t decompose, it takes up shrinking landfill space, and it contains chlorofluorocarbons, which contribute to depleting the ozone layer. That’s a worldwide problem, but what was a very local problem was that the West Milford Board of Education was using a lot of Styrofoam because it\'s cheaper than paper. Tanja wrote an essay about the issue and said that she’d be willing to pay the extra pennies for paper.

Tanja’s teacher, thought this was a great opportunity for a comparison between Thomas Paine’s revolutionaries and Vogt’s fellow students. Pointing out that in the middle-to-late 1700’s, only a third of the American people had advocated revolution, he said, “What we face here with the environment is what they faced in the revolution. It was a core that believed they could make a change.” How many of you, he asked, would do as Tanja and spend the extra money to help protect the environment?

Tanja and her classmates surveyed the students in not only their high school but also the local middle school. Eighty-six percent of the high school students and 92 percent of the middle school students said they’d pay extra for paper. And after Stehle spoke at two assemblies, Tanja and her classmates followed up with action: Students began boycotting Styrofoam, even lending other students the money to do the same. In December, the Board of Education voted to ban Styrofoam and so to an all-paper policy.

But Tanja’s movement had caught on elsewhere as well. She and her classmates had written letters to every school in New Jersey and lobbied local businesses to stop using Styrofoam. She was invited to speak about the campaign at a United Nations International Youth Environmental Forum. And the State Commissioner of Environmental Protection hopped aboard the bandwagon, too; the entire state began moving away from Styrofoam.

But the biggest hopper-aboard-the-bandwagon was yet to come. Tanja’s team organized a boycott against one of the biggest and most visible users of Styrofoam in the country, if not the world: McDonald’s. They joined forces with the middle school to mail a monthly collection of McDonald’s styrofoam trash back to the local franchiser and to the corporation’s chief shareholder. Tanja asked McDonald’s to ban Styrofoam.

And they did. McDonald’s went to all-paper containers.

“Because of the environmental concerns of these students,” said the Board of Education President, McDonald’s [restaurants] around the country changed to paper wrappings instead of the Styrofoam. This was one time when kids taught the adults a lesson about doing the right thing. It truly proved that young people can make a difference.”

“I’m really surprised that it went this far,” said Tanja. “I thought we’d get the Board of Education to switch to paper in our school and that would be the end of it. And then, all of a sudden, it was like a chain reaction, and everyone started getting into it.”

Tanja communicated her surprise—as well as her determination—to the United Nations forum: “ . .  If you believe in something, it can be successful, because just one person has to start, and it will keep going.”

Tanja was one of 29 young Giraffes chosen to tour the USSR in 1990, talking about the ability and responsibility of citizens to work for change.

Update:

Tanja Vogt earned both a college degree and a teaching certificate, and returned to teach in the West Milford school district, now as Tanja Vogt Lane.