Drive to cut plastic bag use launched

7:23am Wednesday 23rd July 2008

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A CAMPAIGN has been launched to slash the number of plastic bags being used in a Hampshire village.

Richard Barnett, of Lyndhurst Road, Ashurst, has received the first consignment of organic cotton shopping bags from a tiny community in southern India.

About 2,000 of the re-useable bags will delivered free of charge to all 850 homes in the village.

The first 100 were handed out to shoppers arriving at the Alldays store by pupils from Foxhills Junior School who helped with the design.

Mr Barnett said the bags had been funded by a £3,000 sustainable development grant from the New Forest National Park Authority and produced using solar-powered sewing machines.

He added: "The reaction from shoppers at Alldays was very positive.

"Quite a few people had brought shopping bags with them and it was good to see that the message was already getting through."

Mr Barnett, who runs a vegan guesthouse and prides himself on being as environmentally friendly as possible, is the village's best-known eco-campaigner.

He generates all his own electricity using solar panels, serves food that contains no animal products and offers reductions if guests arrive by bicycle or public transport.

More than 13 billion disposable plastic bags are given away in Britain every year.

Eight billion end up in landfill sites while others are blown into the sea, where they have a devastating impact on wildlife. An estimated one million seabirds and 100,000 seals, sealions, whales and dolphins are killed by plastic every year.

"Plastic bags are not necessary in the first place," said Mr Barnett.

"There are alternatives that do not damage wildlife and the environment and don't use up so much oil."