Reproduced from The Guardian of Wednesday May 16th, 2007

A small town in Devon has become the first place in Europe to turn its back on plastic shopping bags. But how did it do it? Rebecca Hosking, the local activist who galvanised traders and shoppers, explains:

Two weeks ago, the town of Modbury, in Devon where I was born and raised, with its 43 shopkeepers and traders, was thrown into the spotlight. We never anticipated that our decision to turn our backs on plastic bags and stop selling them or giving them away would hit such an international chord of approval.

First came a storm of emails, letters and phone calls. In one day I received more than 800 emails - far too many to answer individually. Many people wanted to pass on their best wishes, but hundreds more wanted to know how we had done it. I was completely overwhelmed.

But now the dust has settled, and I find myself in the bizarre position of being the country’s leading source of knowledge about how to turn a town plastic bag-free. What follows is how we got rid of relying on plastic bags, and some pointers for anyone contemplating a community that is plastic bag-free.

Many of the people who contacted me said they would like to follow the Modbury example, and asked if I could come to their town to do the same. But, the truth is, this will not work. Sadly, there is no quick fix. My best advice to anyone who wants their town to be free of plastic bags is that they are going to have to fight the fight themselves. You are in a far stronger position than when we did it because you now have Modbury as a success story.

Also, there can be no blueprint because every town is different. Every town has different traders, different needs and different attitudes. You, as a local in your community, will know those issues far better than me. If you want to change attitudes in your town you must have the trust of the traders, and to do that it has to come from a local resident.

The first and most essential step is the laborious job of doing your homework. To make Modbury plastic shopping bag-free took weeks of research and hard work. Sorry guys, nothing in life is easy, especially changing people’s attitudes.

I suggest you learn - really learn - what plastics are doing to the environment, to animals, and how, in particular, plastic is entering the food chain and could be affecting us. This last subject has the potential to shock even the most conservative individual into action. A good place to start for the facts is our website (messageinthewaves.com). From there you can continue to delve as much as you like. After reading up you will see clearly why I was driven to act.

Art of conversation

The next step is to approach the traders directly. Remember, you are going to have to educate the people in your town on how their actions could be damaging, and to do this you have to know your subject matter. You must be prepared to answer all their questions. A handout from me or anyone else will not persuade them. Engaging in conversation is the best way to win them over.

Many people have asked if I applied for help with my cause through grants, or the local council or chambers of commerce. But I did none of these. If I had, I am certain we would still be spinning wheels and caught up in red tape.

Instead, I started with the traders who were my friends, suggesting to them the possibility of making Modbury plastic shopping bag-free. After that, I invited all the town’s traders to an evening at which I showed the BBC film I had made about the effect of plastic bags in the Pacific Ocean. I then provided them with the names of bag wholesalers with environmental bag alternatives.

Some days later, I began individually approaching those traders I was less familiar with, and was pleased to see that wind of my campaign had already reached them. Slowly, I started to tick off the list those who backed my efforts to be plastic-free. But it was not all easy going, and some said: “I like my plastic bags.” This is where the research into what plastic does to the environment came in very handy. Once I started throwing a few statistics at them, their faces dropped and we soon got into conversation. For anyone still sitting on the fence, I called in the help of those traders already on board.

While visiting the shops, I asked what plastic bags they used and for what purpose. Things then became a lot more complicated. Nearly every trader needed something different from bags, whether it was strength, size, appearance or material.

The next step, then, was to research every type of environmental bag on the market. You might start with the list of wholesalers on the Modbury website (plasticbagfree.com). However, it is imperative that you learn about where your bags have come from. Are they fair trade? What materials are they made from? Where and how are those materials sourced? Are they sustainable?

If there are supermarkets or large chain stores in your town they will surely ask you these questions. If you can’t answer them, they will not take you seriously.

As the magnitude of the task I had undertaken dawned on me, I started to look for advice from other areas in the country that had made this move. To my shock, I realised that nowhere in Europe had. My rescue came from Australia and a brilliant charity called Planet Ark. The co-founder, Jon Dee, had helped more than 20 Australian towns go plastic bag-free, and was a great help to me and a world of advice.

The next stage was to set a date. All the Modbury traders agreed to a complete changeover just one month away. The big day was May 1. We created a chamber of trade letter, a gentlemen’s agreement, stating that from then on no plastic bags were to be issued.

Over the following month we had weekly group meetings, at which one of the key issues to resolve was what to charge for the reusable and compostable bag alternatives (£3.95). We kept our mission simple, thinking only of what we were doing as a service to the environment, never to make a profit.

In Modbury, the campaign has galvanised the traders and a new community spirit has awakened. As for me, I only ever saw myself as a bridge between what I witnessed while filming in the waters around Hawaii and the traders of my home town. My place in life is educating people, through my camerawork, about what is happening to our environment - and that is what I am now returning to.

I could only have done this campaign in Modbury because the traders trusted me. The town has a great community but we are nothing special - neither am I. All we did was get out there and make it happen. I hope our story will inspire you to take the message to your own community and do the same.

Plastic plague

· The world uses more than 1.2 trillion plastic bags a year - an average of about 300 bags for every adult, or 1m bags used per minute.

· On average, we use each plastic bag for 12 minutes before discarding it. It then can last in the environment for decades.

· 47% of windborne litter escaping from landfills is plastic - much of it plastic bags.

· About 80% of all marine rubbish comes from off the land, and nearly 90% is plastic. In June 2006 the UN environment programme estimated that there were an average of 46,000 pieces of plastic debris floating on or near the surface of every square mile of ocean.

· Plastic bag litter is lethal in the marine environment, killing at least 100,000 birds, whales, seals and turtles every year. After an animal is killed by plastic bags, its body decomposes and the plastic is released back into the environment, where it can kill again.

· A report, Plastic Debris in the World’s Oceans, by Greenpeace, suggests that at least 267 marine species are known to have suffered from entanglement or ingestion of marine debris. An estimated 1 million seabirds choke or get tangled in plastic nets or other debris every year.

· Countries and cities that have banned or discouraged the use of plastic bags include: Australia, Bangladesh, Ireland, Italy, Taiwan, Mumbai, Scotland, France, West Bengal, Zanzibar, Tanzania, Switzerland, Rwanda, Denmark, Germany, South Africa, California, Somalia, Botswana, Philippines.

· Plastic bags do not biodegrade, they photodegrade - break down into smaller and smaller bits, contaminating soil, waterways and oceans, and entering the food chain when ingested by animals.

Stumble it!