International
Plastic Bag Free Day
The day was a success.
There was/were:
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241 people who signed pledges (to try to not use PBs)
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the distribution of a large box full of general cotton bags
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the distribution of a large box full ofcotton bags from a local butcher
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2 councillors, 2 broadcasters from the BBC & about 500 passers-by
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A plastic bag monster
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A soul band
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Dancing
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An audience yelling for more when the band stopped
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3 stalls selling handmade bags
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a masseuse giving free shiatsu
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the MCS posters to accompany our own
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coverage of both sides of the road.
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posters advertising the event in almost all the shops
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a piece on us in the local paper
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good weather
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good team work by the Plastic Bag Free Highbury Barn group
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talk in the team about our next event
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offers of free food & drink from 2 shops for our next event
This wasn't the first thing our group has done, but it was the biggest & the best.
Neil Devlin
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Sheila Dillon, Radio 4'sThe Food Programme presenter & Highbury resident
FAMOUS LOCAL FOOD REPORTER IS BACKING PLASTIC BAG FREE HIGHBURY BARN
Well-known food journalist and BBC Radio 4 presenter of The Food Programme, Sheila Dillon, is backing a campaign to make Highbury Barn go plastic bag free.
says one of the plastic bag free Highbury Barn group members, Nicola Baird. “Message in the Waves was made by a young Devon film maker, Rebecca Hosking, who went on to inspire her town, Modbury, and more than 100 others across the UK to go plastic bag free – including nearby Newington Green.”
Highbury is great
“I wholeheartedly support all efforts to make Highbury Barn plastic bag free,” says Sheila Dillon. “Highbury is one of the great London neighbourhoods and its shops bring people together. And they're such good shops--no need to go to the supermarket: better deals, better time, better environment, better life all achieved by shopping in your own neighbourhood (just need to wangle a fish shop in there). The shops set standards in so many ways, so let's do it with plastic bags--get rid of them and make shopping in the Barn even less damaging.”
“Plastic bags are unnecessary and ugly--wrapping themselves around trees, hedges, shrubs and fences in our neighbourhood,” adds Sheila Dillon. “Beyond our neighbourhood they do much uglier work: choking animals, fish, amphibians. And even when they're tidied away into landfill they release gases as they decompose that will poison the world for our grandchildren and their descendents. There's so much horror in the world that we're powerless to change. Giving up plastic bags is within everyone's power--it's such an easy political act.”
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In the bag: Shoppers urged to ditch plastic that comes with a 1,000-year landfill life
HIGHBURY Barn is leading the way in the eco-stakes with a campaign aimed at getting shoppers and traders to stop using plastic bags.
Read the full article in the
Islington Tribune
