Modbury in South Devon was Britain’s first plastic bag free town. On May 1st 2007, Modbury hit the international headlines as being the first UK town to turn its back on plastic shopping bags. All of the Modbury traders stopped issuing plastic bags and started selling reuseable, and biodegradable bags instead. Setting the example, Modbury has already had a large number of visits from small delegations wanting their towns to go plastic bag free. Instead of plastic bags, Modbury has designed its own cornstarch shoulder bags for people to use.
Going plastic bag free is such a small thing if everyone pitches in to help out. In Britain, more and more supermarkets are now also gradually encouraging customers to use bags for life or alternative storage methods for their shopping, and if you really want a plastic bag, it will cost you. This is similar to foreign supermarkets that bring the same principles to their UK stores, LIDL as an example I can think of. So if Europe is also re-using bags, everything is in place to start spreading this idea. I’ve re-used my bags for life for nearly 3 years now, and not only does it feel good not to waste more and more plastic bags, they can actually carry more and are easier in doing so.
A few plastic facts taken from the Modbury website:
- Plastic production uses 8% of all the world’s oil production.
- At the current rate the world produces 200 million tons of plastic a year. Less than 3.5% is recycled. Or in other words, 96% of all the world’s plastic is not recycled.
- The world plastic production is increasing at 3.5% per year. This mean every twenty years the amount of plastic we produce doubles.
- The world produces over 200 million tonnes plastic annually. Around half of this is used for disposable items of packaging that discarded within a year.
Perhaps rather than being approached by people, Modbury, as being the first in Britain, could promote the idea of whole communities going plastic bag free. As each new community puts in place the idea, more and more of the problem is solved. Seems like a simple idea for other countries to use as well. Many people don’t even have access to such things like plastic bags to carry items, so why are the rest of us using them like they are going out of fashion?
Be sure to check out all the information on Modbury’s website.
http://www.plasticbagfree.com/
