How to make your town plastic-free

Modbury was the first town in Europe to turn its back on polythene bags, in May 2007, but since then inspired individuals up and down the country have followed Hosking’s lead, convincing their neighbours to kick the plastic habit.

Based on her experiences, Hosking, a wildlife-documentary-maker, along with six other campaigners from North Berwick, Brighton, London and elsewhere, wrote Ban the Plastic Bag: A Community Action Plan.

Here, Sylvia Rowley digests their advice on how to rid your town of the plastic-bag plague

1 ‘Why?’ before ‘how?’

Why should your town go plastic-bag-free? British shoppers use more than 17 billion plastic bags per year – the equivalent of 350 for every adult. We use each one on average for only 12 minutes before throwing it away. As Hosking says, however, there is no ‘away’. Plastic bags are destined for landfill almost as soon as they are created, and add to the 2.8 million tonne mound of plastic waste produced in the UK every year. Some ends up in the sea, with every square mile of ocean now containing an average of 46,000 pieces of plastic, which choke and...

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