Sustainable Merton

Launch - FRIDAY 25 APRIL, 2008 3:00 PM

WIMBLEDON PARK PRIMARY SCHOOL, HAVANA ROAD, WIMBLEDON PARK, SW19 8EJ

Wimbledon Park is set to be the first area of London to go plastic bag free with the launch of Sustainable Merton’s Bags for Better Lives initiative. Over the last seven months a team of volunteers headed by Mariana Cervantes-Burchell, Gillian Leigh and Ruth Baber, approached and worked with local traders to make this project a reality. The team has identified strong support for the move to do away with plastic bags, in order to reduce reliance on oil-based products, protect the environment, cut businesses’ costs and control litter and waste.

As part of the project, volunteers have been knocking on every door and handing a fairly traded cotton shopping bag designed by the Bags for Better Lives team, and a second fairly traded cotton bag from The Co-operative’s Wimbledon Park food store, to every one of approximately 3,000 households in the ward. The volunteers are asking residents to use their new bags every time they go shopping and to support a ban on throw-away plastic bags. The reception from local residents has indeed been very warm.

The bags have been sponsored by eight local businesses (see notes for details) and by the London Borough of Merton. The local Co-operative store, whose national campaigns have led to a 38% reduction in the number of free, throwaway plastic bags issued, also supports the initiative. Operations Manager Craig Smith said “We are delighted to be able to offer each and every household one of these bags for free and hope it leads to a market decrease in plastic bag use in the area”. All local traders are being encouraged to request their customers to bring their own re-usable bags with them.

Around 9,000 plastic bags are handed out by traders in Wimbledon Park each week, according to research carried out by the Bags for Better Lives team. If the initiative achieves a 50% reduction in bags issued, about 234,000 fewer plastic bags will be used each year. If the reduction is 75% bag consumption will fall by 351,000. Traders’ annual spending on throw-away bags could be cut by £8,000-£12,000. Even if not every retailer abandons plastic bags immediately the environmental impact will still be significant. Sustainable Merton believes that helping residents to adjust to a life without plastic bags could encourage them to consider other ways of living more sustainably.

The team hopes that the success of this initiative will lead to an expansion of the project to cover the whole of the London Borough of Merton.

Background notes

1 Sustainable Merton is a community organisation (registered charity no. 1123041).

The organisation gives local residents, groups, organisations and businesses the opportunity to stimulate practical action to make the area a sustainable community. In October 2007 the group won the Merton Green Guardian award for the best green group or project. Current projects include

¨ Food up Front – helping people to grow food in their unused outdoor space

¨ Merton Schools Eco-forum – helping schools work together to become more sustainable

¨ Green Streets – helping residents with sustainability issues at home

For more information go to www.sustainablemerton.org.uk

2 The area of Wimbledon Park is defined as the parliamentary ward of that name. Over 80 shops and businesses are based in the area (on Arthur Road, Durnsford Road, Revelstoke Road and Leopold Road) of whom around half currently issue free plastic bags.

3 Londoners use at least 1.6 billion plastic bags per year. For every billion plastic bags produced 18,000 tonnes of CO2 is released, equivalent to the emissions from over 6,000 cars in a year. Worldwide over one million bags are used per minute and on average we are using each plastic bag for only approximately 12 minutes before disposing of it. In the marine environment plastic bag litter is lethal, killing at least 100,000 birds, whales, seals and turtles every year. On land 47% of wind borne litter escaping from landfills is plastic much of this is plastic bags. Discarded plastic will be littering and polluting the environment for decades and probably centuries to come.

4 Sponsors’ addresses/contact details

London Borough of Merton: Civic Centre, London Road, Morden SM4 5DX

Wimbledon Farmers’ Market: Havana Road, London SW19 www.lfm.org.uk

The Tennis Gallery: 112 Arthur Road, London SW19 8AA

Thanks a Bunch: 32 Leopold Road, London SW19 7BD

McCluskey’s: 200 Revelstoke Road, London SW18 5NW

Kydd & Kydd: 1-3 Leopold Road, London SW19 7BB

Esente Hair: 18 Leopold Road, London SW19 7BD

Edward Jones Investments: 159 Arthur Road, London SW19 8AD

Wimbledon Park café: Wimbledon Park, Wimbledon SW19

The Cooperative Wimbledon Park food store, 173-175 Arthur Rd SW19 8AE

For more information contact:

Mariana Cervantes-Burchell,

Bags for Better Lives Wimbledon Park Coordinator

Tel: 020 826 0916/07949 628 148

Tom Walsh,

Sustainable Merton Coordinator

Tel: 020 8540 0622

Archive - PLASTIC BAG-FREE SHOPPING IN WIMBLEDON PARK

Work is well underway in Wimbledon Park, as Sustainable Merton’s “Bags for Better Lives” team is striving for this mostly quiet neighbourhood to make the news as the first to go plastic bag-free across the capital.

News of this exciting project has been for most part well received by local businesses, the Wimbledon Park Residents’ Association, Wimbledon Park Primary School, Bishop Gilpin Primary School and the local Farmers’ Market . It also enjoys the support of Merton Council, Merton’s Chamber of Commerce and the local Guardian newspaper. There is, indeed, increasing public support for cutting down on the use of plastic bags and plastic packaging in our society, thanks to greater awareness about the devastating impact that these products – which are for most part unnecessary - have on our Planet.

The Bags for Better Lives team have been dedicating a great deal of time and energy to engaging closely with local businesses, in order to encourage them to stop providing plastic carrier bags to their customers. Instead, cotton and jute bags would be made available to local residents via the Bags for Better Lives team and by local shops (some bags will be free, others will be sold). Also, carrier bags made of cornstarch, which do not contain any plastic and are 100% biodegradable, would replace plastic bags at shops where wet or greasy foods require the use of greaseproof or waterproof bags.

Mariana Cervantes-Burchell, the project’s Co-ordinator, is certain that the best way forward is by working closely with local residents and business, so that everyone realises that they have a stake in ditching the throw-away mentality and creating “the type of environment that we all deserve”, in her own words. She understands that although it is never possible to please all the people all the time, it certainly is possible to provide a positive model that will overall be viewed positively by the local community and that, above all, will play a role in creating a cleaner, healthier environment.
Why stop using plastic bags?

• Plastic bags are made from oil-based products, wasting a non-renewable and declining resource.
• Londoners use at least 1.6 billion plastic bags each year. For every billion plastic bags produced 18,000 tonnes of CO2 is released, equivalent to the emissions from over 6,000 cars in a year.
• Plastic bags are a major source of unsightly litter, blowing down the street, catching in trees, clogging up streams, making the shore of the Thames dangerous to birds, and killing turtles, seals, whales and seabirds in the oceans.
• Plastic eaten by animals enters the food chain, affecting humans. Plastic in dead animals’ bodies is released back into the environment posing a threat to other wildlife.
• Most plastic bags eventually degrade if they are left in the light, but they just break down into smaller and smaller toxic bits, contaminating soil, rivers and oceans.
• Plastic bags which end up with the rubbish in landfill will still be around in hundreds of years. They don’t rot away.
• On the financial side, with the cost of these plastic bags at about 1p each, nearly two hundred million pounds (£200,000,000,) are, quite literally, being thrown away. This is more than enough money to build one hospital every year.
These are the shocking facts about plastic and the harm that we as plastic users are making to our beautiful world. This project is part of the “Think globally, act locally” mentality – in other words, if we don’t take responsibility for our own neighbourhoods, we can’t expect anyone else to do it, either for us or for themselves. And we all deserve a healthier, cleaner environment!
Please contact us if you would like to find out more about:

• Further project details;
• Specific awareness raising events in the area;
• How to get involved;
• Suppliers of reusable bags.
Contacts:

1. Mariana Cervantes-Burchell (Project Coordinator)
Tel. 020 8286 0916 / 07949 628 148.
Email: kingstonmertonrnn@yahoo.co.uk
2. Gillian Leigh (Project Support)
Mob. 07956 170 141
Email: gillianuk@btinternet.com
3. Ruth Baber (Project Support)
Email: ruthbaber@hotmail.com
4. Tom Walsh (Sustainable Merton Coordinator)
Mob. 07779 879 091
Email: tjwalsh56@hotmail.com