The Campaign
What’s So Drastic About Plastic?
The majority of our plastic bags come from China, India, Thailand and Malaysia. This means that, by the time they arrive here, the bags will have travelled 8,000 miles. Then they are driven to distribution centres and on to stores. After all that, a typical free supermarket bag is used for an average of only 20 minutes before being thrown away. Scientists estimate that discarded bags take 400 – 1,000 years to decay, and in the oceans they can remain intact and inflict harm on marine wildlife for even longer (and in the hedgerows and treetops of Copmanthorpe, they seem to last longer still!)
Towards a plastic bag free Copmanthorpe
Our aim is to have 60% of the traders in the village not offering new plastic bags, by 1st January 2009. Since the campaign was launched at the 2008 May Day fair, we have made much progress towards our goal.
Free Bags
To help liberate the residents of Copmanthorpe from depending on disposable plastic bags, we will be giving away free reusable bags to all villagers. These will be delivered at the end of June/beginning of July. The bag was designed by school children in the village and features a Sunflower along with the slogans, “Copmanthorpe Cares” and “Please keep reusing me”.