For a few months now, I have been blethering on in my own way about PLASTIC. I can’t honestly remember what it was that got me so motivated: I’ve been a moderately fanatic about recycling for years, and I’ve never been a big buyer of bottled water, but I always thought that if you made the effort to recycle properly that was enough. Was it a Greenpeace article, or the News or the Guardian that caught my attention? I can’t remember. There is a lot of information out there. Eight million tons of plastic waste entering our oceans every year, and staying there, never going away, just getting added to. Killing wildlife, sometimes in the cruellest way. Poisoning the seas, and now it’s poisoning us.
I was horrified. Since then I have been posting, getting hot under the collar, driving friends and family mad, talking, posting, talking, posting, trying to get folk to think about what they were buying and throwing away.
Then I get a message from a chap called Phil. He’s from Transition New Mills, and he asks me if I would like some help. Well no sensible person is going to turn down help, are they? So I said ‘yes please’, and now I am working with the lovely bunch of people who run Transition in our town, thinking and planning about how we can reduce plastic consumption here.
We are hoping that we can make our town cleaner and tidier, (less litter), save some of us some money, make our town even more attractive to visitors, walkers, families and holiday makers, be beneficial for our businesses, and be good for our planet as well.
This is a huge project. We have lots of ideas, but it’s going to take some time and effort. Would really love it if you would WATCH THIS SPACE!

Liz Longden