Follow the example set by Modbury in Devon and help your town or village to go plastic bag free.

How did it start?

Rebecca Hosking, a BBC camerawoman, was inspired to get her home town of Modbury to go plastic bag free after firstly filming horrific plastic pollution in Hawaii and then going diving in Devon only to find the sea floor covered in plastic bags - click here for the Modbury web site.

The key to Rebecca's success was communication – she started off by talking to all the traders in Modbury that she knew and then invited all traders to view the film she had made in Hawaii.

After several weeks of discussion all agreed that is was perfectly possible for all of the shops to survive without plastic bags. The town now uses mainly cotton reusable bags or compostable corn starch bags for which a charge of 5p is made. Shops carry signs and posters explaining why they are plastic bag free and the dangers that plastic bags can cause.

The Plymouth and South-West Co-op as the main store in Modbury, the Co-op was incredibly supportive and supplied a cotton bag for each household in Modbury. They have now gone on to trial plastic bag free shopping in 6 other towns in Devon and Cornwall. If successful they hope to extend the scheme to the whole area.

MCS was delighted to support the Co-op in this venture by taking part in meetings together with Rebecca in some of the towns before the launch.

How do they manage without plastic bags?

The main types of packaging now in use in Modbury:

• Cloth reusable bags - these are fair trade bags shipped here rather than airfreighted. The ink is also a vegetable based dye. Rebecca reasoned that there was little point in replacing plastic bags with bags that had been made under sweat shop conditions and created a huge carbon footprint in getting here.
  
• Compostable corn starch bags can be bought in all shops in Modbury for 5p. The butcher, deli and other shops also use smaller cornstarch bags for meat and other items.
  
• Each of the traders in Modbury put in about £50 to purchase the first set of compostable biobags. The sale price of 5p now goes to purchasing further bags.
  
• Paper bags which are used by the gift shop and the takeaways.
  
• The florist uses biodegradable acetate, brown paper and ties it all up  with plain and coloured raffia strips.

To go to the Modbury website click here

View Rebecca's film Message in the Waves

To find out more about plastic bags  click here

To see a list of other towns that have or are planning to go plastic bag free click here

To join the latest Google forum for Groups wanting to go Plastic Bag Free click here

Join in with the UK's first Plastic Bag Free day! Go here for more information!