Ban the Plastic Bag is a small but very evocative read from the green shelf of Fragile Earth Books and essentially, it sets out a community action plan for a carrier bag-free world.
Every year 17 billion carrier bags are given away free in the UK; that means an average of 300 carrier bags for every man, woman and child. Plastics do not biodegrade and scientists now estimate that plastic lasts for up to 1,000 years.
Every carrier bag that has ever been produced is still on the planet, in landfill, hedgerows, or floating in the sea. Plastic bag litter is lethal, killing over 100,000 seabirds, dolphins, seals, whales and turtles every year.
Worldwide, people are rallying: in Bangladesh and Taiwan carrier bags have been banned; China has announced it will soon do the same. Ireland introduced a 15p levy on plastic bags, which has led to a 90% reduction in their use. Marks & Spencer has introduced a similar charge.
In May 2007, Modbury in Devon became Britain’s first plastic bag-free town. This book takes the Modbury story and uses it as a call to action, entreating every village, town and city in the country to follow its example and ban the plastic bag.
I spoke to Pip Richards, one of the key contributors to the book and posed a few probing questions.
What motivated you to get involved with the book and what are your thoughts on it?
The waste issue is one that we at the Sustainable Trust feel strongly about and have worked on over the years. We mounted an exhibition called ‘Re-inventing Rubbish‘ and made an Arts Council funded digital short showing how to make sustainable Christmas cards and presents for Electric December.
Sawday’s ‘Ban the Bag’ book is a sensible practical way of sharing the experiences of 7 campaigners in very different places. I was happy to co-ordinate the campaign in Helston last winter and am still an active group member. The key to a shift in public awareness lies with the media. Any way of getting the message across is to be welcomed.
The book is a splendid example of a community toolkit. To attack a problem like the plastic bag seems insurmountable at first. Success brings empowerment and then encouragement to take the process further. This is a priceless gift in a time where some people can become seriously depressed about environmental issues.
Why do we need to find solutions to the plastic bag?
They are a blight on the landscape, a life threat to wildlife and take so long to decompose that they are with us for generations. They break up into smaller pieces contaminating the land and the waterways. Minute particles enter the food chain and can then be found in our bodies. Who knows what damage these chemical deposits are doing to the world’s health?
The ‘throw it away’ age has passed. There is no away anymore. Plastic rubbish builds up on roadsides, in hedgerows and on fences and trees near careless supermarkets.
Marine wildlife suffers, especially turtles, mistaking the bags for food, unable to regurgitate they sometimes choke to death. A large proportion of marine rubbish is plastic, washed from the land by rivers and streams.
What are your top tips for weaning people off of using them?
Keep a fabric or string bag in your handbag/briefcase for the odd bit of shopping. Never leave home without one. Remember money, keys and bags when you leave the house or workplace.
Dissuade your family from bringing them home. In Helston, we have just produced a large strong jute duffle bag for the men in our lives.
Refuse plastic bags politely and loudly at every checkout and shop till without appearing judgemental. Some interesting conversations ensue with the most unlikely people. Everyone has an opinion on this issue.
www.Morsbags.com make bags from left over fabrics and will give them away outside supermarkets that show no sign of reducing plastic bag use. Start a ‘pod’ of your own. Download the design and get started.
Do something that you can do! Engage Scouts, Guides, the WI, the school and all those other groups you know of, or have family who are members of.
Lobby your Parish, Town, District or County Council. There is such a groundswell now that they really can’t ignore you and your friends.
Give yourselves a name; get a catch phrase to publicise yourselves too.
Send me an email if you get stuck or would like help to get things off the ground at [email protected]
Subscribe to our group [email protected] for more support
One expression we always show on Sustainable Trust exhibitions is ‘ Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing, because he thought he could only do a little’.
Remember ‘the World is our larder, but beware, it is also our dustbin’.
Pip’s Story
Pip Richards downshifted in 1979. From a successful 10 years in independent television, she followed her dream of buying a south-facing house with an inspirational view. The fact that it had no mains electricity or water supply and a long muddy track with 3 farm gates were all superseded by the stunning environment in which she then brought up her two sons.
Several years later the splendid view of 75 acres of historic Estate Groves was under threat by a timeshare company, who felled an adjacent 10 acre wood to put up 28 chalets, and had further outline planning permission to build another 122. Alarm bells rang and a long battle ensued involving gazumping and public appeals, culminating with the purchase of the woodlands by the Dandelion Trust concerned with Care, Conservation, Creativity and appropriate stewardship.
The Sustainable Trust was formed some years later initially to manage the woodlands for community use and to further the objects of the Local Agenda 21 group, of which Pip was a member and newsletter writer. Networking is second nature to this Geminian and the Trust has gone from strength to strength over its first 7 years.
The website, www.sustrust.co.uk demonstrates the breadth of the work supported and undertaken by the Sustainable Trust. Acting locally and thinking globally, they believe in empowerment, environmental education and eco-therapy. New projects present themselves frequently and if they feel right and connect with the objects of the trust, they are taken on board.
Click here to order Ban the Plastic Bag and get a free cotton bag too!
Rubbishly yours,
TS x
I wish the all supermarkets would just have the guts to charge like in France, why are we so wishy washy in this country?
It really makes me cross, they are so scared of upsetting the customer over charging or banning plastic bags yet they have no issue with doing our small shops out of business and upsetting us then.
I like the idea of the bags for men, this is a brilliant idea, it has got to appeal to them too! Where can we get them?
I suppose we could run up a simple drawstring bag in a manly colour eh? I will consult my husband when he gets in and report back!
Love to all,
Deb x
One of the major supermarket chains in Toronto has just announced that they will be charging for plastic bags. I do not think the fee is large enough though. It really should be so prohibitive that everyone will bring their own cloth bags rather than purchase plastic bags. What I really wish though is that all supermarkets would have the nerve to not supply plastic bags at all.
Recently, the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) stopped providing plastic bags. They do provide paper bags, cardboard boxes gratis. And one can purchase heavy cotton bags as well as a super heavy plastic bag that appears to have been constructed from recycled plastic. (At least I HOPE it has been constructed from recycled plastic….)
Having done it now for quite some time, it’s not all that difficult to carry bag(s) at all times. They can be folded flat and easily fit into a brief case. Once the bags are filled with groceries, I doubt that anyone would flinch at having to carry the bags, no matter what the pattern – hot pink with cute flowers and birdies or “manly” dark brown tweed.
Many thanks for the link to morsbags.
Hiya chum,
I know what you mean – there’s still a disjointed connection in this country it seems….not enough emphasis on the importance of WHY we need to cut the plastic bags out of our lives.
You’ll be interested to see the posting I’m going to put up today about Morsbags….lolol…..I’ll have you all reachng for your sewing kits…You could have bags for men, women, kids, even the dog!!!
Rubbishly yours,
TS x
Hi Elizabeth,
Thank you very much for your posting and thoughts on the subject and you’re welcome for the link to Morsbags. Incidentally, I found a smashing cotton throw yesterday at the charity shop (second hand thrift shop) and I’ll be running one up later….
I think the process of prohibting things by increasing the price is absolutely futile. It doesn’t work with alcohol and it certainly doesn’t seem to be working well enough on the plastic bag front either!
Education is one key route, getting the stores to change their policies and stop providing them is another, but unfortunately, that takes courage and conviction and I’m not entirely sure many of them have either!
If we put our focus on the young ones, the kids in school and college and educate them about the consequences of this inane overuse of an unsustainable material, we might get somewhere! They can teach the adults from the grassroots upwards.
Until we have utopia and I suspect that’s an awfully long way off, we need to keep injecting funky elements into using/making cloth bags, perhaps by personalising them and giving the carrier ownership of their proud green credentials.
Onwards and upwards my friend,
TS x
I agree that simply driving the price of the plastic bag up isn’t necessarily going to resolve the problem, Tracey. But I do not think it’s futile. Education could take place with this price hike.
In the case where a supermarket has recyclable cotton bags for sale (our supermarkets do), they could continue to offer the plastic bags they still have on hand at a really exorbitant price: say $10 a plastic bag rather than just a few cents. Right next to these ridiculously high priced bags would be the reasonably priced recyclable cloth bags. This would pretty much ensure that people would NOT buy the plastic bags and choose the cloth ones instead. Or better yet bring their own bags.
The high price for the plastic bag could be explained by saying that it is becoming increasingly difficult to dispose of plastic and the fact that there is a significant section of the ocean (I’ve heard that it is a large as Texas) that is filled with plastic whirling around should be stressed.
The major supermarkets have ad campaigns everywhere – public transit, billboards, TV, radio. They could easily add the phrase “Remember to bring your grocery bags!”.
Apparently, it only takes two weeks to create a habit. Two weeks of putting the cloth grocery bag(s) into a briefcase/purse every morning before heading out to work would do the trick.
Hi Elizabeth – you’re so right with your post and I’m right beside you in lots of ways, but if we had that kind of hike for bags here, there would be riots! LOL…there’s simply not enough info given out about the damage they cause, particularly to sealife, but local wildlife too. Plastic bags are vile toxic products, but still so many people see them as their only option to get the shopping home….and so many still use them for a one off too, which is disasterous.
Perhaps some high profile telly might help do the trick……
Any producers out there listenin’!!!!
All the best my friend,
TS
x
I think we are making progress but not fast enough, most people where I live carry bags for life. I used to feel in a minority not so long ago when I first started taking my own bags to the shops, but not any more.
It would be good to see some short public information films on tele about the problems of such things instead of the useless adverts for stuff we don’t need. They did it years ago about ‘learn to swim’ why can’t we educate people while they’re sat down watching the tele eh?
Love
Deb x
Hi Deb,
I wholeheartedly agree and believe education via the mass media would definitely help!
You should be in Government missus!!!!
Love to you J & E,
TS x x