May 18 2008
Plastic Ain’t York’s Bag
Last weekend Susan Wade Weeks (Conservative Parliamentary Candidate York Central) and I launched a campaign to encourage shoppers in York to stop using plastic bags. The campaign entitled “Plastic Ain’t York’s Bag” was launched in York City centre with us giving away 1,000 Fair Trade cotton bags in exchange for shoppers’ plastic bags.
The cotton bags were warmly welcomed by shoppers who were queuing up to exchange their plastic bags for a more attractive and environmentally friendly alternative. In fact everyone was thrilled with the bags and very keen to play their part, we had an amazing response. Our message to everyone on the day was simple – just say no to plastic in York. As consumers we have a great deal of power. If we all decide together that we don’t want something, we can really get results. This was a great start.
Heavy winds earlier in the spring resulted in an appalling number of plastic bags being blown from landfill sites and decorating the trees and hedgerows in our area. We also know now that there is a growing problem with a whirlpool of plastic bags in the Pacific Ocean endangering sea-life. It really is time to try and tackle this growing problem which is what our campaign aims to do.
We collected over a thousand plastic bags which will all be recycled.
P.S. What a great result for Leeds United on Thursday night beating Carlisle 2-0 to get into the playoff final at Wembley next Sunday.
As I travel around our roads I see plastic in hedges and on grass verges, and most of it is plastic sheeting, blowing off lorries and careless farmers leaving it in their fields, plastic bags are not the only poluters. What about the travellers camps we see on verges? they leave rubbish and plastic and if we mere citizens did that we would be fined or arrested, but they seem fireproof, no-one bothers. The lay-byes are a disgrace with plastic lying around, so why cannot community service punishment be used to clear them up?