Bags of Life!

I stumbled upon a fantastic local campaign today when I was out shopping. I bought a few things for my daughter’s birthday party and as I was paying I came out with my usual, ‘It’s okay thanks, I’ve got my own bag,’ at which point I was handed a little voucher.

‘Don’t bring my life to an end. Re-use me!’ was the slogan and a cheeky little picture of a polythene bag, bright eyed was pleading to be saved from the dreaded landfill.

It turns out that several of the shops on the high street have joined in a campaign with local schools to give out these vouchers to people whenever they refuse a bag. The vouchers can then be handed in to local participating schools and there’s a competition to see which schools collect the most with environmentally friendly prizes for the most successful.

A visit to the OTCN website shows this is just one of a number of schemes being run across the county aiming to reduce the number of plastic bags produced and thrown away. It is all too easy to forget that plastic bags are made from natural gas or oil, precious resources we can’t just keep throwing away.