| No more plastic bags! |
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| Written by Andrew McCloy, 2008 | |
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UK stores hand out more plastic bags than any other country in Europe, but in parts of the country, local people are making a stand against them, says Andrew McCloyOn 1 May 2007 the small Devon town of Modbury made the national news. There were no earthquakes, FA Cup wins or royal visits - simply that the community decided to make an environmental stand and become the first town in Britain to rid itself of plastic bags. Coaxed and inspired by a growing debate within its own community, Modbury's 43 shopkeepers and traders stopped giving out disposable plastic bags overnight and started selling reusable and biodegradable bags instead. On a practical level it simply took a bit of reorganisation and a change of habit - meat from the local butcher was wrapped in corn starch paper instead of plastic and the Co-op, gallery and gift shop all switched to cotton bags. But as a bold, counter-culture initiative and a model of sustainability for other communities, Modbury really started something. Since then, the list of towns declaring themselves plastic bag-free has grown and grown: Hebden Bridge, Hay-on-Wye, Saltash, Selkirk, Wimborne... even the 33 London boroughs are now discussing the possibility of a city-wide ban on throwaway bags within a few years. If all this feels like a bandwagon has been set rolling then there's some hard facts to stop it in its tracks. In the UK alone, 13 billion plastic bags are given away each year (more than any other country in Europe) with the majority ending up in landfill. On average, a plastic carrier bag is used for just 12 minutes before it's discarded, and since they take at least 500 years to break down in the natural environment it's no surprise that so many end up blowing around our streets and countryside. Plastic accounts for over 90 per cent of marine rubbish: bags in particular are responsible for the death of at least 100,000 birds, seals and whales every year. Plastic bags do not biodegrade, they photo-degrade - put simply, they break down into smaller and smaller pieces, contaminating both soil and water and entering the food chain when ingested by animals. Putting paid to plasticThe idea behind Modbury's initiative came from local resident and BBC camerawoman Rebecca Hosking, who saw first hand the effects of pollution by plastics on marine life when filming in the Pacific.The sight of albatrosses and dolphins trapped and dying in rolls of plastic had a profound effect on her; then after she got back she went snorkelling in the sea and realised to her horror that our home waters are no better. She decided that enough was enough and someone had to take a stand. Rebecca enlisted the help of friend and Modbury deli owner Adam Searle, who was sympathetic to her story. "We live near the coast and when I saw the plastic on our beaches I felt such a hypocrite," he says. "At the time I was giving out up to 200 plastic bags a day." They began talking to other traders and invited them all to a screening of Rebecca's film showing the effects of plastic bags in the Pacific Ocean. One by one they came on board and pledged to go plastic-free, but in order to help them make the switch, Rebecca had to find out their individual requirements and source viable alternatives. She soon learnt that every trader had a slightly different requirement from bags, whether it was strength, size, appearance or material. She researched not just what it was made of, but how and where, and whether it was Fair Trade or certified organic. The end result was a range of sustainable alternatives to plastic, with each shop or trader opting for whichever solution worked best in their own shop. By and large, the choice was between reusable cloth bags (cotton and jute), 100 per cent biodegradable vegetable starch bags, recyclable paper bags or recycled cardboard boxes. Campaigners encouraged the take-up of reusable bags, as they're the ideal, most environmentally friendly option and can eventually be composted. Indeed, it's estimated that an average cloth bag, over its lifetime, will save the owner from using at least 1,000 plastic bags! Although they acknowledged that they couldn't stop the pre-packaged items that came into their town, Modbury's campaigners were now confident that they could stop what packaging their own traders used and handed out, so on 1 May the switch took place. All of the town's shopkeepers took part, including the local branch of the Co-op supermarket chain, which donated a Fairtrade reusable cotton carrier bag to every household in Modbury. Existing supplies of plastic bags were sent off to become recycled plastic furniture. |
