WINTER NEWSLETTER August - December 2018

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1 Campaigning with Friends of the Earth (FOE) and Surfers against Sewage (SAS) Plastic Free Communities to free our community from avoidable single use plastic products and packaging and encourage sustainable solutions. WINTER NEWSLETTER August - December ANNUAL PROGRESS MEETING This will be held in the last week of January 2019 at the Abergavenny Community Centre from 7pm 9pm. Date to be confirmed. Stakeholders and supporters will be invited to attend. We will contact you as soon as possible with an update. 2. PROGRESS TOWARDS OFFICIAL SAS PLASTIC FREE TOWN STATUS The Plastic Free Abergavenny (PFA) team has been working flat out on the campaign since the summer to try to achieve our Plastic Free accreditation by the New Year, one year after we started our campaign. Below you can see how far we have progressed in fulfilling the demands of the five SAS objectives. Objective One: Local governance - Completed This requires local councils to agree to and pass a resolution to reduce the use of single-use plastic. Monmouthshire County Council has already passed a resolution to work towards becoming one of the first Plastic Free Counties in Wales. Now Abergavenny Town Council has also decided to support our campaign. In September the Council passed a resolution at their Full Council meeting to support the Plastic Free Abergavenny campaign. A decision was also made to roll out a Refill Scheme across the town, identifying businesses which offer a free drinking water refill service. This scheme will help to cut the huge number of plastic bottles of water used and often discarded. PFA attended a planning meeting at the Town Hall on October 12 th and helped to run a stall to launch the Refill Scheme on December 1 st at the Tithe Barn. Residents and visitors may now refill their own water bottles at our 13 Plastic Champions Food and Drink outlets in town (see list below) Look for the blue sticker:- 1

2 Objective Two: Local Business - Completed This requires a minimum of 6 businesses in Abergavenny to demonstrate that they have stopped using at least three single-use plastic (SUP) items and are working towards eliminating other SUP items from their business. Independent Food and Drink outlets in Abergavenny We are delighted to announce that, as a result of our survey of food and drink outlets in the town, we have identified THIRTEEN Plastic Free Business Champions. We asked independent pubs, cafes, shops selling food and restaurants to complete a survey to identify which single use items they would like to eliminate or replace with reusable, recyclable or compostable alternatives and what further action they would like to take to address their plastic waste. Eighteen independent food outlets completed the survey. Thirteen of these businesses have replaced at least three single use plastic items and qualify for the plastic free champion status. The Plastic Free Champions identified so far are: The Angel Bakery, Annette s Cafe, The Art Shop and Chapel Cafe, Bean and Bread, The Codfather Fish and Chip Shop, The Cwtch Cafe, Emmeline s Tearoom, The Fig Tree Espresso, The Grofield Inn, The Little Treat, The Trading Post, Nicholls Coffee Shop and Y Fenni Steakhouse. They have all been awarded a Plastic Free Champion certificate to display in their premises. These businesses have worked hard to stop using SUPs such as plastic cutlery, plastic straws and stirrers, condiment sachets, single use plastic lined cups and non-recyclable take away containers. Many are encouraging customers to use their own keep cups for take away hot drinks and containers for take away food. We interviewed some of these businesses and made short films about what they have done to become Plastic Free Champions and what they thought about the plastic issue. The films capture a strong commitment to running a plastic free business. The films can be seen here: We are inspired by the level of commitment to reducing plastic waste expressed by owners and managers of these independent businesses. All are prioritising reducing plastic waste over profit. They deserve to have the support of customers as they are taking responsibility for tackling waste and are at the heart of a vibrant, caring community. The independent sector is leading the way to addressing plastic waste in Abergavenny. We should all be very proud of them! 2

3 Engagement with local supermarkets In our Summer newsletter we put forward a proposal to carry out an action to return unrecyclable plastic packaging to supermarkets. There was considerable support for this from local people who had had enough of the excessive amounts of non-recyclable plastic packaging accumulating from their supermarket shopping. However we have now decided that the way forward is to work WITH the supermarkets, encouraging them to listen to their customers concerns and take action to address them. We have chosen to approach Waitrose first as they are well established in Abergavenny and they pride themselves on trying to be environmentally aware. After two very positive and supportive meetings on October 30 th and November 20 th with the manager of Abergavenny Waitrose, Peter Falcini, it has been agreed that PFA will have a stall outside Waitrose in January where we will hand out our leaflets explaining what actions Waitrose is taking to tackle excessive use of single use plastic packaging. what customers can do to reduce their own use of plastic packaging. We intend to meet with the managers of other Abergavenny supermarkets in the New Year. Objective Three: Community Engagement - Nearing completion This requires community groups, schools and community spaces to engage with the SAS Plastic Free Communities policy and agree to reduce their use of single-use plastic. Working with local schools During the second half of this Autumn Term we have been visiting local schools to find out what they are doing to address the issue of plastic pollution with their pupils. Many local schools have already held assemblies or litter picks for example, much of the work in connection with the Eco Schools scheme managed by Keep Wales Tidy. The pupils are already very concerned about the issue. The recent decision by Monmouthshire County Council to arrange milk to be delivered by Raglan Dairy to all Key Stage One pupils in reusable glass bottles instead of plastic ones has been warmly welcomed by all the primary schools. They have also stopped using plastic straws and some schools have taken even more action against single use plastic. Seven Primary Schools have signed up to the Plastic Free Abergavenny campaign Llanfoist Fawr; Gilwern; Llantilio Pertholey; Cross Ash; LLanvihangel Crucorney; Our Lady & St. Michael s & Raglan. King Henry VIII Comprehensive School has also joined the campaign. We have interviewed staff in 5 schools to ascertain what has already been done to tackle single use plastics in school. We have conducted our first whole school assembly in Llanvihangel Crucorney Primary School plus practical workshops in Llanvihangel Crucorney and Llantilio Pertholey schools. Further assemblies and workshops are planned for the Spring Term The children were very interested in the beach clean samples and enjoyed sorting products into sustainable and nonsustainable piles. Some schools took up our suggestion to organise a Plastic Free Christmas project and we issued them with information sheets about balloons, glitter and metallised wrapping paper. 3

4 The Plastic Free team had a bit of fun in November making a Plastic Guy out of non recyclable plastic packaging. He has been used to good effect as a prop for the school activities. He has been christened Toxic Tom by a pupil at Llanvihangel Crucorney school as he represents the worst sort of unsustainable plastic packaging that cannot be recycled and ends up in the incinerator or landfill. Working with the local Abergavenny Cubs group We have been working with Caroline Robertson, Cubs Leader, to encourage the cubs to become plastic free champions. The cubs have been asked to undertake an audit of single use plastic items they find in their homes and talk to their parents about giving up or replacing single use items. The cubs have made a promise to change at least one single use item and will be awarded with a certificate and badge if they follow their pledge. We have been inspired by how aware the cubs, aged between 10 and 12, have been about the plastic crisis. Many have pledged to stop using straws and buying water in single use plastic water bottles. They were particularly keen to stop using cling film at home so we hope that parents will help by finding alternatives. Thanks to Caroline for working with us on this fun project and well done Abergavenny Cubs for taking on the Plastic Free Champion Challenge! Working with Keep Abergavenny Tidy On December 5th we attended a meeting with Keep Wales Tidy and MCC to discuss the way forward for Keep Abergavenny Tidy. Our group is more concerned with tackling the litter issue upstream to stop plastic becoming litter in the first place than with dealing with litter on the ground. Our suggestion to carry out a brand audit at future litter picks to establish which manufacturers are the main culprits was welcomed. We are also coordinating our school activities with Keep Wales Tidy s role in the Eco Schools scheme. Working with Crucorney Environmental Group A link has been established with Andrea Jackman. We helped to hand out Plastic Free Christmas posters they had produced. Contacting other local community groups and spaces We are in the process of contacting other groups to find out how much single use plastic they use and what plans they have to reduce it. This will be followed up in the New Year. 4

5 Objective Four: Community Events Completed This requires us to run at least two public community events per year in the town. Information Stalls Since the start of the campaign in January 2018 we have run three information stalls in the centre of Abergavenny, plus a stall at the Gilfest day held by Gilwern Roots on September 2 nd, plus helped run the Abergavenny Refill Scheme Launch stall on December 1 st. Abergavenny Ladies Business Association presentation On November 1 st Plastic Free Abergavenny gave a short talk to the Abergavenny Ladies Business Association about our campaigns. We were provided with a lovely lunch which offered opportunities to talk to the individual business women in the group. Once again, we were heartened to find that so many people were already finding ways to reduce plastic in their lives and businesses. The members mentioned that there are many challenges to reducing plastic use. Objective Five: Establishing a Steering Group with local stakeholders This requires us to set up a steering group to include local stakeholders to meet once a year to set the direction and meet the objectives of the campaign. After our Annual Progress Meeting towards the end of January (date to be confirmed) it is our intention to submit our application to SAS for Plastic Free Town status. Our treasurer s report will be included in the Abergavenny & Crickhowell Friends of the Earth AGM. 3. PUBLICITY Plastic Free Abergavenny on Facebook and Twitter After a steady growth in the number of people joining our Plastic Free Abergavenny Facebook group there was a spike in interest after we posted videos of our PFA Champions on local social media pages. At that point new membership surged by 715%. There are now 114 people checking in to see the news and discuss the topics. To join in the discussion go to the page (search under Plastic Free Abergavenny on Facebook) and click the join button. Verification is usually very quick. You can also find Plastic Free Abergavenny on Twitter. Articles in the local press Two articles have been published in the Abergavenny Chronicle, one in November about our Plastic Free Business Champions and one in December on Plastic Free Christmas. CONTACT/FIND US: plasticfreeabergavenny@gmail.com Plastic Free Abergavenny 5