Victoria's Green Matters - 1st Dec 2011

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:

The damage wrought by discarded plastic was brought to the fore again recently on one of our most loved television programmes. ‘Autumn Watch’ on Friday, 18 November showed us a gannet nesting colony beset by the remains of plastic fishing nets and containers. There were also the distressing pictures of seabirds, trapped at their nest sites, unable to feed and which had starved to death. Other, luckier ones were able to be freed by the wardens just in the nick of time. This scene, so far away from our everyday lives, brought home to us the dangers of a substance that we use thoughtlessly, and sometimes carelessly, in our everyday lives.

The plastic bags that we use at the supermarket cost millions of pounds to produce and can be the cause of the untimely death of many creatures on land and sea when disposed of incorrectly. If all shops and supermarkets could agree not to provide plastic bags, the problem would solve itself. Our government will not take the step of banning the bags as in other countries – who knows why? The reason of removing freedom of choice seems a remarkably stupid one when plastic causes so many problems.

There are many ways in which we can help. Do not discard rubbish carelessly and now that we have our new recycling bins we can recycle most of our plastic waste. Always take shopping bags with you. Join our campaign; go to PlasticBags@dealwithit.org and sign the petition at http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/12786.