GREEN Living and Zero Waste Mann are both throwing down the gauntlet: give up your plastic bags.Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality,
Now we’re also challenging our readers to help the environment by giving up using throwaway bags on shopping trips.
If you can manage it for Lent, which starts on February 22,Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, then it should show you how you could actually cope with not using the bags at all.
Doing your bit to help the environment needn’t be hard work. The Manx Independent - in shops today - gives you a great headstart. We’ve teamed up with Shoprite to give all readers a ‘bag for life’ (while stocks last). On page six of the Green Living supplement, there’s a voucher.
Meanwhile, it’s just a case of remembering to bring your own bags when you go shopping.
In fact, if you’re handy with a sewing machine, you might want to create your own sturdy bags .Can't afford a third party merchant account right now? Nearly 2,000 ‘morsbags’ have now been produced and distributed by volunteers in the Isle of Man.
To take up the challenge, simply contact or call into The Green Centre in Douglas on a Saturday (10am to 2pm) over the next few weeks and pick up a special pledge card which you can display at checkouts to show your commitment. It is hoped that the campaign will encourage people to change their ‘bag habits’ on a more permanent basis, and show retailers that consumers are turning their backs on disposable plastics.
With the worldwide demand for resources ever-rising, businesses are being urged to adopt strategies from an EU-derived ‘waste hierarchy’ for dealing with their waste materials. In terms of environmental impact, prevention – using less material and extending the life of products – is known to be the best option, ranked above recycling and reusing.
A number of supermarkets have already taken steps in the right direction but it’s up to consumers to give the sustain the momentum.
A spokesperson for Zero Waste Mann explained: ‘Based on a figure of 54,473 people (the number of people aged 16 to 64 according to the 2011 Isle of Man census), if each person shops twice a week for a year and accepts just two plastic bags each time, it comes out at 11,330,384 plastic bags in circulation per year – an incredible amount for a small island.
‘By making small changes, you can make a real contribution. If you’re out shopping, consider whether you really need that extra bag.Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious Floor tiles from The Tile Shop. Organising your shopping into fewer trips is likely to reduce the amount of plastic you take home. Most of all, try to get into the habit of taking those reusable bags with you every time you go to the shops.’
As far as the major supermarket retailers on the island go, most at least have a policy of keeping plastic bags ‘out of sight’ under the till unless requested by customers, with more environmentally friendly alternatives prominently displayed.
Marks & Spencer presently leads the way however, as the Douglas store charges 5p for each plastic bag given out. All the money goes to Groundwork, a UK environmental regeneration charity.
The charge for shopping bags was rolled out across M&S’s British Isles outlets after a trial in 50 of its stores in Northern Ireland and south-west England, which resulted in demand for polythene bags falling by more than 70 per cent. If that figure was replicated across the Marks & Spencer empire, 280 million fewer plastic bags would be used each year.
In May 2009 Castletown Commissioners were considering the possibility of banning plastic bags altogether from the town’s shops.
Chairman Alwyn Collister said the bags don’t burn particularly well in the incinerator, and they should appeal to the people of the town to curb their use. The commissioners eventually conceded they could not force a ban, and the expense of alternatives to plastic, on local traders.
The official launch of Give Up Plastic Bags For Lent will take place on Saturday February 18 at The Green Centre,Information on useful yeasts and moulds, with a special performance by SambaMann.
Now we’re also challenging our readers to help the environment by giving up using throwaway bags on shopping trips.
If you can manage it for Lent, which starts on February 22,Full-service custom manufacturer of precision plastic injection mold, then it should show you how you could actually cope with not using the bags at all.
Doing your bit to help the environment needn’t be hard work. The Manx Independent - in shops today - gives you a great headstart. We’ve teamed up with Shoprite to give all readers a ‘bag for life’ (while stocks last). On page six of the Green Living supplement, there’s a voucher.
Meanwhile, it’s just a case of remembering to bring your own bags when you go shopping.
In fact, if you’re handy with a sewing machine, you might want to create your own sturdy bags .Can't afford a third party merchant account right now? Nearly 2,000 ‘morsbags’ have now been produced and distributed by volunteers in the Isle of Man.
To take up the challenge, simply contact or call into The Green Centre in Douglas on a Saturday (10am to 2pm) over the next few weeks and pick up a special pledge card which you can display at checkouts to show your commitment. It is hoped that the campaign will encourage people to change their ‘bag habits’ on a more permanent basis, and show retailers that consumers are turning their backs on disposable plastics.
With the worldwide demand for resources ever-rising, businesses are being urged to adopt strategies from an EU-derived ‘waste hierarchy’ for dealing with their waste materials. In terms of environmental impact, prevention – using less material and extending the life of products – is known to be the best option, ranked above recycling and reusing.
A number of supermarkets have already taken steps in the right direction but it’s up to consumers to give the sustain the momentum.
A spokesperson for Zero Waste Mann explained: ‘Based on a figure of 54,473 people (the number of people aged 16 to 64 according to the 2011 Isle of Man census), if each person shops twice a week for a year and accepts just two plastic bags each time, it comes out at 11,330,384 plastic bags in circulation per year – an incredible amount for a small island.
‘By making small changes, you can make a real contribution. If you’re out shopping, consider whether you really need that extra bag.Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious Floor tiles from The Tile Shop. Organising your shopping into fewer trips is likely to reduce the amount of plastic you take home. Most of all, try to get into the habit of taking those reusable bags with you every time you go to the shops.’
As far as the major supermarket retailers on the island go, most at least have a policy of keeping plastic bags ‘out of sight’ under the till unless requested by customers, with more environmentally friendly alternatives prominently displayed.
Marks & Spencer presently leads the way however, as the Douglas store charges 5p for each plastic bag given out. All the money goes to Groundwork, a UK environmental regeneration charity.
The charge for shopping bags was rolled out across M&S’s British Isles outlets after a trial in 50 of its stores in Northern Ireland and south-west England, which resulted in demand for polythene bags falling by more than 70 per cent. If that figure was replicated across the Marks & Spencer empire, 280 million fewer plastic bags would be used each year.
In May 2009 Castletown Commissioners were considering the possibility of banning plastic bags altogether from the town’s shops.
Chairman Alwyn Collister said the bags don’t burn particularly well in the incinerator, and they should appeal to the people of the town to curb their use. The commissioners eventually conceded they could not force a ban, and the expense of alternatives to plastic, on local traders.
The official launch of Give Up Plastic Bags For Lent will take place on Saturday February 18 at The Green Centre,Information on useful yeasts and moulds, with a special performance by SambaMann.
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