Thursday 14 August 2008

Plastic bag free Scilly

Modbury in South Devon was the first town in Britain to ban the plastic bag. BBC cameraman Rebecca Hosking was so appalled at the devastating effects of plastic on marine wildlife that she decided to go home and make sure every shop in her home town stopped selling or giving away plastic bags. This has been enormously successful, gained a huge amount of publicity and has spearheaded a rapidly growing nationwide campaign.

On Monday August 18th we will be showing the film Message in the waves, in the Old Wesleyan Chapel on St Mary's at 7.30pm. This film was shot by Rebecca Hosking's team in Hawaii and vividly describes the complete carnage that marine rubbish (most of it plastic) causes on the wildlife - yet a tiny amount of the rubbish itself actually comes from Hawaii.

This marks the launch of Plastic bag free Scilly. We want every retailer to stop selling or giving away plastic bags and every food retailer to stop selling food in oil-based plastic consumables such as cups, plates, cutlery and sandwich wedges. To do this we will be giving retailers sources of alternative packaging, whilst educating shoppers.

All this will make these Islands part of the solution, not the problem. More will appear here as the campaign develops. If you want to know more please contact us.

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