May I suggest you watch this Australian report:

http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=598914

It’s like a 12 minute version of Message in the Waves, and well worth watching. 

Also please pass it onto anyone who thinks that the issue of plastic bags and plastic waste generally doesn’t affect them!

Here is another reason for giving up plastic bags.

With the price of oil rising anything made with oil as a base will also rise. In particular plastic packaging.

“British Polythene Industries Plc, Europe’s largest producer of plastic packaging, said on July 3rd, that the company’s price increases won’t be enough to cover the higher cost of materials and that profit margins will decline.”

As some of you may have read in the Bucks Examiner we have some exciting news regarding cornstarch bags for retailers. The council have agreed to buy and sell and generally administer the cornstarch bags for the town. This means that once they have received their initial order any retailer in the town can choose to use cornstarch instead of plastic by buying them from the Town Council. As these bags cost more than their plastic counterpart, don’t be surprised if you also find that some retailers charge you for them as well. This is great news as it frees up our resources for other aspects of the campaign, so a big thank-you to the Council for agreeing to take it on and another huge round of applause to Bill and his trusty team at the Town Hall who will do all the work!

From our point of view cornstarch bags should only be seen as stopgap to help wean us all off the idea of getting bags automatically from shops. In an ideal world everyone would always carry their own reusable non-plastic bag or pull their own shopping trolley and shops would not have to provide anything, but in the meantime, whilst we strive towards this plastic-bagless-nirvana, cornstarch bags should be appearing in Chesham later in the summer.