Ilminster’s Bring-Your-Own-Bag Day - Market Day, Thursday 20 March 2008
Sunday, March 16th, 2008
South Somerset Climate Action has taken the lead in encouraging shoppers to bring their own bags for one day at least.
The question is, can we break old habits? In the days before plastic bags, people would often carry string bags in their pockets but now there are some fold-up bags that are very compact. So please bring baskets, cotton bags, bags for life, or whatever suits you best!
Most shops are fully behind the scheme and the Chamber of Commerce Committee has been most helpful.
Members have been discussing plastic bags for some time and this one-day experiment may help traders to decide whether they could soon declare the town “plastic bag free!” Nobody wants to see a customer upset and shopkeepers cannot afford to lose a sale, so shoppers themselves are asked to say, “No thank you!” to new plastic bags. Some traders are investigating bags made of corn starch for products like fish and meat. These bags are ‘biodegradable’ but don’t worry, you will certainly be able to get home before they fall apart!
The bigger message, of course, is that we would be wise to make and use things which last, to use only what we really need, and to treat our planet and its resources as the treasures that they are. Future generations will thank us if we learn to be more careful.
The inspiration for the event came from a BBC film Message in the Waves and press reports such as the Guardian profile which starts: “Last year Rebecca Hosking was filming wildlife on a beach on Midway Island, a remote Hawaiian atoll when, instead of finding wilderness, she and a colleague were confronted with the horror of hundreds of albatrosses lying on the sand.The great birds’ stomachs had been split open by the heat, and bits of plastic were spewing out between the feathers and the bones. All kinds of plastic - toys, shopping bags, asthma inhalers, pens, cigarette lighters, toothbrushes, combs, bottle tops. The birds had swallowed them and choked to death. It got worse …”
For the full article, headed, ‘She has changed the national perspective about plastic bags in a few months. She should be Prime Minister’. see: www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/23/plasticbags.recycling Rebecca returned to her home town of Modbury, near Plymouth and, within months, the town was “plastic bag free”. see: www.plasticbagfree.com/facts.php
South Somerset Climate Action members who organised the recent rubbish clearance in Old Road, created the idea of a single “plastic bag free” day to get things moving. They have printed flyers and leaflets, negotiated with the Chamber of Commerce and the Managers of Tesco and the Coop and visited almost all the shops in town.
The free newspaper, “View from Ilminster”, has taken up the cause. They have designed our poster and devoted almost the whole of the front page of the 14 March issue to the campaign. Not only that, an entire double page spread inside recreates the poster, lists the facts, and even explains how to make your own reusable bag!
“Nearly everyone we have spoken to is behind this.”