Penistone Carry-A-Bag Public Meeting
Helen Fryers and Rachel Gibbons
Helen and Rachel explained what had been done so far in the Penistone Carry-A-Bag scheme (covered on this site) and what else is planned. Coming up soon will be a bag-making day and delivering the Co-operative fabric bags to all the households in Penistone. There will be a launch day in the town centre in the summer. More details will be put on this website of these things and more.Ian Ferguson from the Co-operative
Ian told us what the Co-operative are doing to reduce plastic bags in all their shops. They are trialing plastic bag reduction schemes in Hull and hope to roll this out to all their branches if it goes well. They showed us some of their new re-usable bags.
In Penistone, the Co-operative are supporting Penistone Carry-A-Bag by donating 6000 of their fairtrade fabric carriers which we will distribute to every household in Penistone. They have also given us £500 in start-up costs. They are looking into putting a plastic bag recycling bin in their Penistone shop and will be training all their staff to encourage shoppers not to use plastic bags.
John Clarkson from Global Trading UK
John explained about home compostable alternatives to plastic bags. More technical details to follow here...
Graham Young from Barnsley MBC's Waste Management section
Graham kindly offered to help with bag deliveries using the rural bin collection for outlying farms and villages. He also explained about which plastics can be recycled - basically only milk-type bottles and lemonade-type bottles (at the dumpit at Springvale). Other plastics cannot be recycled locally and so BMBC have decided it is best not to send them to China for recycling as other authorities do, because of the environmental costs of shipping them there. Therefore all other plastics are taken to landfill.
Also at the meeting...
There was a lively discussion between members of the audience and the speakers. There were also displays out of alternative bags and information about the Penistone Carry-A-Bag scheme.