You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March, 2008.
Today, I have been trying to get the last of the promised sponsorship money into our ‘umbrella company’s’ bank account as we will shortly have to pay a deposit on the bags we have ordered. These things all take time. [I am still waiting to see the photograph of the 'mock-up' bag for final approval and was hoping that that would come through today but it looks like I will have to wait until tomorrow now.]
I nearly had heart-failure last night when the bag company sent me an invoice that was for very nearly twice the amount I was expecting! I had a few very nasty moments wondering how I could have made such an awful error [and imagined having to rob my own bank account of several thousand pounds], before I calmed down and worked out that the mistake was from the bag company’s end, not mine. Whew! I still managed to have a pretty sleepless night until I received an amended invoice, with lots of apologies, this morning!
Since the beginning of March [it seems forever!], I have been struggling to get all the sponsors logos [10, in all, plus the logo for Banchory Development Initiative, our umbrella company] incorporated into the design of the bag………………and this was with the help of a Graphic Designer who happens to be a member of the environmental team of one of the sponsors.
I have just done a quick count and it looks as if over 150 emails have been exchanged with the various parties concerned. I don’t know if other groups have had similar experiences.
Unfortunately, some of the wording on the logos provided could not be screen-printed [which is the process used by Go Green Bags] and we have just had to do the best we could, given these circumstances.
Here is a sneak-preview of what the bags will look like. [I should have photos of a 'mock-up' bag very shortly and we will get a better idea then.]
The first photo is of the base and the design will be split in two, with one half showing on either side of the folded bag. [You will get a better idea when I put-up the photos of the 'mock-up' bag.] The other photos show the two sides of the bags.
I think they will certainly get noticed when shoppers start carrying them full of shopping on the streets of the town.
On Easter Sunday, I was invited to participate in an ‘Environmental Awareness’ display that the Birse & Feughside Parish Church was hosting after their Easter Service.
It is a delightful little church, set deep in the Aberdeenshire countryside, and it was a surprise to find that between 80-100 parishoners were at the Service. Several other organisations had set out displays and the parishoners showed a very keen interest in environmental issues.
The Waste Aware Department of Aberdeenshire Council were giving away cloth bags and these were snapped-up within minutes. I literally had to hang onto my own personal collection of bags which I had taken to liven-up the display!
The parishoners particularly seemed to like the Go Green bags I had brought back from Australia some years ago [and have used ever since], so I am hopeful that the Go Green representative will get a good response when we visit early in April the seventeen traders in Banchory who indicated in our survey that they would be interested in stocking alternative bags.
Banchory bags Campaign has ordered their ‘CLEANER GREENER BANCHORY’ bags from Go Green, but more of that in another post.
On Tuesday, I sent a message to Mike Pringle [who introduced a bill into the Scottish Parliament in 2005 in regard to plastic carrier bags] which read
“I am wondering whether you have been able to reintroduce your bill regarding plastic bags into the Scottish Parliament? Surely, this is the time for Scotland to take a lead on this issue.”
I went on to tell him of the overwhelming support we were having from Members of Parliament, Councillors, shoppers and traders in Banchory. However, I also had to mention that a very few shops were not in favour of the campaign and others were waiting for instructions from Head Office and, although I had had positive responses from some Head Offices, I felt that it would take legislation from government for the others to react.
This is the reply I received:-
“I have now reintroduced my Bill into the Parliament & await the outcome of a hearing at committee. The Lib/Dem on the committee is your own MSP Mike Rumbles so I know I will get good support from him.
Mike Pringle
Thank you, Mike, and good luck.
THOSE OF YOU READING THIS WHO LIVE IN SCOTLAND SHOULD BE SENDING MESSAGES TO YOUR OWN MSP’S TO URGE THEM TO ADOPT AND HELP PASS MIKE’s BILL AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
Banchory Primary 2/3 children were the stars of The Press & Journal in yesterday’s paper.
Under the headings ‘Pupils’ Bags Sell Out Within An Hour’ and ‘Town on a Mission to Become First in North-East to be Free of Plastic Carriers’, the P&J reported how popular the school’s project to encourage the use of reusable bags is in the town. Ruth MacDonald, their teacher and the school’s eco-co-ordinator, said
“Because it came from the children, it’s had a huge impact on people. It’s not just an adult handing out a bag.”
And, when they visited STV’s North Tonight studios and were interviewed, they showed that they had a very good understanding of the effect plastic carrier bags are having on wildlife and the environment.
Yesterday afternoon, another team member and I had been busy conducting a small survey of parents at The Hill of Banchory Primary School as to their views regarding plastic shopping bags. Again, we were met with overwhelming support and, although 25% said that they did not presently own reusable carrier bags, all said that they would be using them in the future.
This week Tesco have been talking to the Aberdeenshire Council in regard to their wish to build a new store on the outer edge of Banchory and, this weekend, they held a consultative process with Banchory residents.
I will leave aside the arguments for or against whether Banchory needs a new supermarket [at least, for the moment] and just concentrate on the issue of plastic bags.
In their presentation to Councillors, two of the local Councillors reported to me that Tesco had stressed the point that they would hide plastic carrier bags under the counter and only give them out when customers requested them – as they have done in North Berwick. However, when I asked the Corporate Affairs Manager to confirm this, she said that: “No, she hadn’t stressed that point, and had only indicated the North Berwick action as an example of an action they might be able to take.”
I have since been lobbying the Councillors to incorporate this action into the conditions set for the development to go ahead.
Tesco are stressing that the store will be an ‘Eco-Store’ and ‘one of the most advanced, low carbon Tesco stores to date’ and the fact that they will be using onsite renewables, dimmable electric lights, timber from sustainable forests, energy efficiency is good but in their literature they only say:
We encourage the re-use of our carrier bags by offering extra club card points and we’ve pledged to reduce packaging by 25%, by 2010.
I still believe the Council need to pin them down in writing to not having plastic carrier bags visible on the top of any of the check-outs in this store.
This term Banchory Primary School P2/3 pupils have helped the BbC campaign in a number of ways, one of which being to produce their own cotton bags, designed by one of the pupils, Frances Sealy, aged seven. All the pupils had a go at creating a design and members of staff chose the winning design.
WH Smith’s and The Banchory Farmers’ Market added their support for the campaign this morning by inviting the children to sell the bags in the store and the market place. Before the end of the morning, they had sold out.
The Primary 2/3 Class teacher and school eco co-ordinator, Ruth MacDonald, said:
“The children have been really excited about this project. I now have parents coming into school telling me they’ve been told off for using plastic bags in the supermarket. So, the message is clearly getting through. We hope people will bin plastic bags altogether.”
The Government today threatened to impose legislation early next year forcing retailers to charge for plastic bags unless they make “sufficient progress on a voluntary basis” by the end of 2008.
The Government said that it would start to consult on how the charge would work and how to ensure that any money raised from the levy goes to environmental charities.
On February 29, the Prime Minister wrote in the Daily Mail: “I have already made clear that over time we should aim to eliminate the single-use plastic bag altogether.
“I want to make clear that if government compulsion is needed to make the change, we will take the necessary steps.”
The comments came a year after he secured agreement in February 2007 from some 20 companies, including the main supermarket chains, to reduce the environmental impact of their plastic bags by 25 percent by the end of 2008. However, the Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP), tasked with making sure they stuck to their commitments, found only a reduction of 14 percent over the first 12 months.
“Given the damage that single-use bags inflict on the environment, the Government is committed to taking strong action,” said the Treasury.
Unfortunately, we will have to wait to see what that ’strong action’ is, but maybe the Treasury threat of ”change over yourselves or we’ll legislate”, will be enough to give a few more a shove.
Or, maybe, we [you] will just have to start more pbf campaigns!
BbC would like to say ‘THANK YOU’ to
Maersk Oil,
Aberdeenshire Council,
Banchory & Ternan Round Table,
Canadian Natural Resources,
PGL and Senergy,
The Scottish Environmental Protection Agency,
Keep Scotland Beautiful,
North Banchory Company
and Raeburn Christie Clark & Wallace
for their support for the campaign, and for their generous contributions towards the bags which BbC will be giving out to Banchory shoppers in June.
It has been a frantic time, trying to tie-up all the loose ends regarding the funding for the bags, the choice and design of the bags and, at the same time, collate the findings of our survey of the Banchory shops.
At virtually every shop we were met with great enthusiasm from staff members. Of the 70 shops surveyed only three are against the scheme. Thirty-four are fully supportive. Eleven are supportive but would like time to source alternatives, and the remaining sixteen either need instructions from Management at Head Office, or need time to consider the matter further.
This is very encouraging.
Thirty eight of the shops are prepared to put up posters. Others support the campaign but have a company policy of not displaying posters.
Sixteen of the shops could/or would not tell us how many plastic carrier bags they gave away each week [and some of those must give away a lot of bags] but, when I totalled up the numbers the other shops had given us, it came out to nearly 65,000 pw – which comes to OVER THREE MILLION a year in a small community of approximately 6,500. That is THREE TIMES THE NATIONAL AVERAGE!
However, ALL the shops said they had noticed a massive difference in the last few months, with more and more customers bringing their own bags with them. WELL DONE BANCHORY SHOPPERS.
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