Call for district to become bag-free zone

4:57pm Thursday 24th January 2008

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A LEADING Green district councillor is calling for Malvern Hills to become a plastic-bag-free zone by the end of the year.

Cllr John Raine says the council should provide "positive public leadership" to persuade shops to stop giving out free bags, and customers accepting them.

"The liberal free supply and the extremely short-lived usage of plastic bags symbolises the carelessness of contemporary society towards our planet's eco-system and its future," he said.

Cllr Raine has tabled a notice of motion at next week's full council on Tuesday, January 29, meeting calling for action.

It urges the council to promote reusable shopping bags and also to look at environmentally-friendly alternatives to plastic refuse and recycling bags.

"The irony here is that most people now accept that plastic bags are an unnecessary problem and agree that we should all be using more durable, re-usable and environmentally-friendly ones instead. But so long as retailers continue to supply plastic carriers free of charge, too few are making the switch.

"Likewise, as long as members of the public go shopping without their own bags and continue to accept the plastic ones freely on offer, most retailers are likely to carry on providing them," he said.

He says Malvern should follow in the footsteps of Modbury in Devon, which became Britain's first plastic-bag-free town, with Hay and Brighton following suit.

"Back home, here in Malvern Hills, as elsewhere, there is much local public enthusiasm for such a cause, campaigns having recently been launched in both Upton and Malvern."