When do you become 'Plastic Bag Free'?

[The Bagman of Bridgend]

Here in Porthcawl we making good ground by getting 94% of the shops to
take steps to reduce their plastic bag use. Somerfield are also
working with us at Sustainable Wales to organise a 'green day' to try
to encourage more people to adopt reusable alternatives.

BUT...

With communities now saying that they are reaching plastic bag free
status when they get a certain percentage, is there a certain criteria
that we are all working towards? In the Fair Trade movement, they have
to get a certain percentage of shops to stock Fair Trade products
etc., which has been drawn up and agreed by the campaigns which pursue
it.

Some towns may have get 100% and a very well done to you all. But for
others who are working just as hard and are falling short of a clean
swoop, what targets are you setting yourselves, and now that the
Plastic Bag Free movement is fully fledged - should we adopt some
universal figure for all campaigns i.e. 80-85-90%?

Another idea for those towns with chain stores is perhaps consider a
separate percentage for them, like I'm considering here, as we have
over 20 chain stores (by 'chain' i mean those businesses which are
operating in a number of towns, including the likes of both Boots and
Ferraris - the latter being a prominent Welsh-based bakers).

For example - we would need to get 80% of small traders plastic bag
free, whilst 25% of the chain stores would do it for the town to be
given the status. This is just a suggestion for larger towns to adopt
so that they can get on board. The more towns on board, the more
change we all see and the more pressure the Government will have to
act.

I hope this doesn't over complicate it - but it would be good if
campaigns could link up and go by our own agreed criteria. Its clear
that towns are using target perecntages to get their status - so why
don't we make one?

Please let me know your thoughts - you fellow plastic bag battling
superhero,

Joe

[Sue Kinsey]

Hi Joe

I agree that some kind of percentage would be good especially for the
larger towns. I think we can ask for a minimum of 80% of independent
traders. 25% of the chains is probably realistic to be honest.

Alternatively we could go for a stepped approach with the gold standartd
of 100%!


Cheers
Sue


Dr Sue Kinsey
Pollution Programme Manager
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[David - APB]

Umm - This gets tougher the more you think about it.

I've always been of the opinion that this movement is powerful because
of its loose, independent nature. i.e. Lots of people have just got up
and done it, they haven't waited for government or the businesses,
they've just done it...and that's what any individual can do. They can
just make a difference by making a decision!


For that reason I think that perhaps it should be up to each area/town/
campaign to make the call for themselves, BUT to be able to explain
why they claim their area is Plastic Bag Free. I suspect nowhere will
really be plastic bag free until there is legislation or the oil runs
out!

This also gives campaigns and towns scope to declare themselves
Independent Trader PBF for example - to show that the chains are not
helping, etc.

Having said that, perhaps a 'Charter Mark' would be popular, and be a
role that someone would like to take on. (When's the first PBF
conference then?)

Does that make sense?

David

[Sue Kinsey]

David

You're right the more you think about this the more you go round in
circles!

I couldn't agree more about the amazing independent nature of this
campaign - that is what makes it so great as I see it - people just do
it! And I think that is why it has been so powerful as well.

On the one hand I can see the advantages of a grading type system -
everyone knows what to aim for and it is clear to everyone - media
included what is meant by a pbf community -- also for me it would make
it easy to know when to move someone over to the PBF list ;-)

On the other hand the free nature of this campaign is what makes it so
great and it might get quite tedious if it became very ordered and
someone had to actually administer this and 'judge' areas!.

Perhaps for now we should be happy to call areas pbf if they felt they
had achieved as much as was possible and were happy to give their
interpretation e.g. 80% independents 20% chains - if there were any
queries we would then all know what we were talking about in each case.

We could also highlight areas that had done spectacularly well, although
that might be unfair on the larger areas which have more problems with
the chain type stores.

Round and round and round

Not sure what the best answer is!

Cheers

Sue



Dr Sue Kinsey

Adopt-a-Beach Officer

[The Bagman of Bridgend]

David and Sue,

Many thanks for your thoughts on this.

When I first starting looking into the plastic bag issue and following
all those places intending on going plastic bag free, it made sense to
me that 100% is a nice and simple figure which signifies a 'Plastic
Bag Free' community. That was the same aspiration I had when I started
taking to the streets of Porthcawl, even though I knew it would be
hard to get everyone on board.

But when I realised some communities were setting their own targets
and claiming status - even though the proverbial anti-eco butcher
thinks the campaign is a load of rubbish - I just wanted to throw it
out there. I trust that communities which say they are Plastic Bag
Free are in fact just that, or at least very near that point. At the
end of the day, its their reputations at stake if you ever visit
them!

I also really like the nature of the movement; good old fashioned
local campaigning at a grassroots level where the people make the
decisions themselves. Each campaign is special because every one is
different - different ideas, methods, events, shops, people etc..
Particularly in my role in Bridgend County by encouraging more plastic
bag campaigns, I don't want to create a string of cloned campaigns;
each one should be different and unique to the area they based. One
example is the branded bag - classic way of each community expressing
its self to achieve the same end.

By suggesting a Charter Mark (good term by the way!) I don't want to
make your campaign the same as mine or the same as Modbury's. I think
it might be the next step in pushing this movement forward, getting
ever closer to that destined Plastic Bag Free Conference (doesn't that
sound good - David, what have you started?!?!) just in case our
politicians decide to flip flop and forget their promises to bring in
legislation.

The MCS are doing a great job in supporting the Plastic Bag Free
movement already. By putting up that list of plastic bag campaigning
communities we all know the score. So a big hand for the MCS!

[Ian]

You're all of you right about this... a formal accreditation, like a
kitemark, will kill the spontaneity of the movement. It's a grass-
roots consumer revolt (the need for which says worlds about the
prevalent hypocrisy in public life.)

But we in Whitby have an end-of year target & plans to announce
ourselves Bag-Free in the new year. The way things are going, this
target won't be met. Not if it means 100%, no less. The local
Somerfield aren't even making a pretense at reducing their bags.
(Which in view of what I said about hypocrisy I ought to praise them
for).

I for one (and I'm not speaking officially for my local group just
yet) would like some moral support from those already past the post to
justify an announcement.

So what if...

we in Whitby were to invite two volunteer PBF towns to audit our
effort prior to our target date? They would not be asked to award a
kitemark but a sort of Nihil Obstat (=can't see anything against it in
principle). We'd show them the evidence, give published written
answers to questions and undertake prescribed remedies. There need be
no more than one formal visit after the groundwork, with a modest bit
of a fuss made, dinner out, travel paid, and job done. The
accreditation -- if we dare call it that -- would only last a year &
have to be done again if we wanted to carry on boasting about it.

Then "PBF" can stay as a self-appraisal, figures like 99% (95%?
80%? ... 60% lawd-elp-us ... and of what precisely?) never need be
bandied about in public, much less set in stone, and oversight can be
entirely by peer-review. But still be worth some credit in the world
at-large.

Ian
PBF Whitby campaign

[David - APB]

In case you (like me) were wondering..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihil_obstat

;-)

This is good suggestion and a nice offer, and a really nice way for
people to get together. Like producing a 'kite' mark, I say if anyone
wants to do it, then do it!

The status of 'Plastic Bag Free' it seems to me has got to be defined
by individual campaigns because of the realities of where the
campaigns are. To me the key is transparency. Be clear about why you
claim PBF status, and clear about how that may seem problematic.

Plastic Bag Free is a campaign statement, a position to be adopted, a
target to aim for, etc, etc.

Claim your status in a way that is meaningful to you - that may
include endorsements from other campaigns. BUT you may be asked to
prove it, and I guess that's something you (not you specifically Ian!
- you as in 'one') need(s) to be comfortable with.

Hope this doesn't come across as preachy, it's supposed to be another
'discuss' point!

David - APB
P.S. Just because I haven't said it for a while - well done everyone.
Keep up the good work!

[Ian]

David, I go along with that. Self-accreditation... but convincing self-
accreditation.

We'll kick this around inside our PBF Whitby group, but if we're all
of the same mind, we'll be appealing for volunteers to audit our
effort later this year.

This isn't dry bureaucracy. There's a big plus. It can be fed out to
the local press as a series of little announcements and keeps the pot
boiling. For all I feel the local rag is a big yawn for much of the
time, it's one of the few publications around here which simply
everyone reads.

I know to my cost. Anyone care for a link to a newspaper article with
pics about Baring All for charity?
(I have to ask because I don't want myself banned on this list :-))

Ian

[CarryAbag]

This is a question we have asked ourselves quite a lot!

We have had tremendous support from the Town Council and several of our
retailers took the idea on board very quickly. Not all of them are able to
do something immediately because they have stocks they want to run down.

In order to keep the pot simmering and give encouragement to those who were
doing something, we decided to go for a phased launch.

The 'Phase 1 Launch' will be on 20th September. For this we will have about
thirty shops on board. Doesn't sound much in a town of 108 shops, but it
will be a quarter of the independents. It gives us a chance to have a
jamboree in the Market Square, the Mayor is coming, the press will be there,
and we have a Mors Pod in action at our Arts and Crafts shop.

We may not have achieved 100% Plastic Bag Free status, I doubt any town ever
will without legislation, but the more chances we have of publicity, the
more people start to think it has actually happened. And that is where it
counts.

Cheers
Donna Forbes

Let's make Chesham Plastic Bag Free
www.PlasticBagFreeChesham.co.uk

-----Original Message-----
From: plastic...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:plastic...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ian
Sent: 31 August 2008 23:59
To: Plastic Bag Free