Garden and Green

Daily Mail Plastic Bag Petition

The Daily Mail, which has a loyal readership of 6 million people, often refered to as 'Middle England' has today launched an environmental campaign highlighting the damage the use of plastic bags is doing to the environment. The campaign is called BANISH THE BAGS.

Most will be familiar with the now depressing sight in Winter and Spring when there is less vegetation of country lanes covered in plastic bags and bottles.

But it is not just British country lanes being swamped in plastic, the paper shows shocking photos of Turtles with plastic bags wrapped around them as they swim and a pile of bags that were discovered INSIDE the stomach of a dead Minke Whale. 2lb of plastic in weight.

*It is estimated that 1 million seabirds and up to 100,000 marine mammals -seals, dolphins, whales etc are killed each year because of marine waste.

*A typical supermarket plastic bag will be used for 20 minutes and take 1,000 years to decompose.

* Only 0.5 of plastic bags in the UK are currently recycled.

* It is estimated that 77 plastic bags litter every 1 mile of UK coast.

The Daily Mail is giving away FREE re-usable shopping bags, all you need to do is send some stamps or £1.25 for one to be sent. More details here.

Schools can get a FREE wallchart about the plastic bag problem and can be obtained by sending a cheque for £1.50 for delivery here.

You can sign their petition online here.

Stop Press - 28th Feb

Marks and Spencer today announced that from the 6th May, all food plastic bags will be 5p each. Money raised will to help Groundworks, an excellent charity that trains young people and helps to develop and maintain green spaces, many in urban areas.

After trialing charging for bags in 50 of its stores, M&S found that usage of food bags went down by nearly 70% as people switched to Jute, bag for life etc.