Modbury - the first plastic bag free town in the UK
Modbury is a small market town in Devon, UK. Although there is seasonal (holiday) trade, many of the local shops serve and rely on the local community. In May 2007, Modbury became the first town in the UK to stop issuing plastic bags when goods are purchased.
Every single trader in Modbury has signed up for it (which is pretty amazing in itself) and they encourage their customers to use their own shopping bags, or where this is not possible, the shops offer reusable and environmentally friendly carrier bags.
Some plastic bag facts:
- A person uses a plastic carrier bag on average for only 12 minutes
- A plastic bag can take between 500 to 1000 years to break down in the environment.
- In the UK at least 200 million plastic bags end up as litter on our beaches, streets and parks ever year.
- When a plastic bag enters the ocean it becomes a harmful piece of litter. Many marine animals mistake plastic bags for food and swallow them, with painful and often fatal consequences.
One of the many interesting aspects to the campaign within Modbury has been the spin-off benefits and the depth and breadth at which people have looked into. Rather than just replacing the plastic carrier bags with a bio-degradable bag, or a paper bag, they asked the question “what is the cost (to the earth) of producing that paper bag in the first place” in other words, they looked in detail at the current alternatives to plastic to see whether they were in fact better or worse. They also looked at where and how the alternatives where made ie where jute bags made in sweatshops, was the glue used environmentally benign and so on.
A year on, Modbury has thrived on being plastic bag free and the whole experience has made people take a wider look at their impact on the environment, both locally and farther afield.
The Modbury Plastic Bag Free website is packed with great information on the reasons why, their community, the transition, facts on bags, the alternatives, suppliers and so on. Well worth a visit.
Modbury Plastic Bag Free website
