Bagfree08’s Weblog

A taster from plasticbagwatch – to keep up to date visit regularly

http://plasticbagwatch.blogspot.com

Are you ready to go plastic bag ‘cold turkey’? Well my friends, I hope that everyone’s new year’s resolutions are reusable bag related. We are only a week into 2008 and already I’m feeling some pretty good vibes on the PBF movement. I’m seeing new sites, new campiagns and even some new towns on the MCS Plastic Bag Free Communities list. Congrats to Tisbury, who became the fourth town in the UK to go plastic bag free according to the official listing. Also a big hand to Hay-on-Wye, the town of books which has also been closely watcched on PBW. They achieved 80% PBF status and are set to become Britain’s fifth and Wales’s first. Keep watching the MCS list in the right hand column for any further developments.

To begin, Suffolk County Council are urging it’s citizens to kick the plastic bag free habit for the new year. The Lib Dems (again) are behind this move. What an interesting parallel – plastic bags in liege with smoking? Could we turn plastic bags into something socially unacceptable?

Upton in Worcestershire is seriously considering going plastic bag free, with the local beautify In Bloom group leading the campaign. Impressed by Modbury, they will showcase some fabulous reusuable alternatives in Upton in an up and coming weekend. For more info, click that link.

In Wimborne, Dorset, the recent efforts of the local group Reduce the Use (what a great name!) have excelled their own expectations after they cleared their stock of branded cotton bags. It seems that 500 bags had been snapped up like hot cakes over the Xmas period and now the group have had to order more to meet demand. The South strikes again as it seems they are leading the way in the PBF movement.

Talking of the South, just when all was quiet on the Brighton front, it seems there too some steps have been made. Brighton was the first city to give real attention to the problem and in their supermarkets, they are proving that the plastic bag is unwanted. Plastic bag distribution dropped by a third in the city’s two Asda stores as a trial was in place over the Xmas period to cut plastic bag use. Checkout assistants only gave out plastic bags when asked, making customers think about their bag use. It’s good to see that when people thought about it, they saw real sense.

Remember kids – this week will see the beginning of the M+S scheme in the South West to charge 5p for plastic bags. I’ll be keeping a watchful eye on that one. Lucy Siegle from The Observer discusses the hardship of obtaining a truly eco-friendly bag, whilst in Spain, the PB revolution has begun courtesy of Greenpeace.

Lastly and hot off the press, I would like a new blog on the roll – Bagfree08. It centres around the campaign in Huddersfield, so if this affects you I ask you kindly to give it some support. Or give it some suuport anyway! We are all in this fight together.

By the way – the Porthcawl campaign is coming on nicely. Expect an update about it real soon. Until then, ta ta.