Plastic Bag Free Sleaford – A Start For Local Sustainability - Lincolnshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry, UK

SHOPPERS in Sleaford are being encouraged to help make the town centre the first in Lincolnshire to become a plastic bag free zone.

A unique partnership between Sleaford BID (Business Improvement District), Sleaford Town Council and North Kesteven District Councils, Churches Together, The Hub and Sainsbury’s is seeking to promote Sleaford as a sustainable and environmentally conscious place to visit, shop and do business.

And their first step is to produce cotton ‘bags for Sleaford’ which they hope shoppers will use instead of the traditional plastic carrier bags.

Sleaford BID Manager, Sandra Grinnell, said: “Plastic shopping bags are the most visible aspect of unnecessary over-packaging and wasteful behaviour.

“Sleaford, as an historic market town, wants to make sure it promotes a clean, sustainable image to all visitors and residents.”

Research by Defra shows that UK consumers use more than eight billion plastic carrier bags per year yet the majority of these bags are used just once and then discarded.

But as Rebecca Hosking, the campaigner who initiated the plastic bag free idea in the town of Modbury in Devon, states: “There is no such thing as ‘away’ when it comes to throwing away plastics.”

It was once thought it took 400 years for a discarded plastic bag to decompose but recently scientists have readjusted that time to 1,000 years.

Mrs Grinnell said: “Just a small thing such as changing our shopping habits can have a tremendous beneficial impact on the environment.

“In Sleaford, the partners will be encouraging shoppers to bring their own reusable shopping bags with them into the town centre and we will be producing cotton ‘bags for Sleaford’ to help make this possible. We will also be calling on the support of our High Street businesses to back the campaign.”

For more information about the Sleaford BID, contact Sandra Grinnell on 01529 308411 or visit the website www.sleafordbid.co.uk