Plastics – Greens Dig Deeper

Want to know how you, as an individual, can wage their own personal war on plastics?

West Cornwall Green Party – working  in partnership with Surfers Against Sewage – is hosting a public meeting to discuss this issue.

Plastics are a real threat to the existence of all life in our oceans and consequently our planet – and this means us.  “Plastics are in the news at the moment, but the problem has been on the Green agenda for many years” said Karen le Borde, who is organising the event. “And there’s a lot more to solving it than people have been led to believe”.

“The meeting will be a mix of short talks and workshops”, Karen explained. “The aim is to produce an ‘action list’ of small changes that people can make in their everyday lives, to avoid using plastics”.

The evening will also include a short talk on Cornwall Council’s current systems of waste management and recycling, followed by a question and answer session. Cornwall Council’s contract for waste management – including refuse collection – will be drawn up and agreed this year. Ideas and suggestions for this contract will be forwarded from this meeting to the media and Cornwall Council.

In October 2017 the Green Party passed a resolution at conference to ban all unnecessary single use plastics. In December, Amelia Womack, Deputy Leader of the Green Party, wrote to Michael Gove asking that the government go much further than the ‘piecemeal’ changes presently on the table for discussion. Amelia urges the government to take a holistic approach to the problems of waste – and in particular, the problems caused by plastics. “We urgently need to ‘design out’ waste in the consumer chain”, Amelia points out. “This means ending the production of single use plastics. Recycling may be one solution to the current problem, but unless recycling hits 100% worldwide, then tonnes of plastics will continue to wash down our rivers and into our seas”. And some of this waste will end up on Cornwall’s beaches.

The meeting takes place on Monday, March 12^th at the Admiral Benbow,  Chapel Street, Penzance, starting at  7pm

Anyone who has a contribution to make to this meeting – either as a campaigner or as a person who just struggles to live plastic free – is welcome to attend the event, which is free of charge.