Plymouth City Council has been awarded Plastic Free Community status in recognition of the hard work of the council and partners across the city to reduce single use plastics and tackle plastic pollution. The accolade was confirmed by Surfers Against Sewage, and comes on the anniversary of Plymouth achieving Plastic Free Communities status for its historic waterfront, and the launch of the city’s Plan for Plastics.
A “Plastics Code of Conduct” has been launched to help businesses, community organisations and individuals cut down on single use plastics has been launched by partners in Plymouth. The Plan for Plastics Code of Conduct was launched jointly by members of the Plymouth, Britain’s Ocean City Plastics Taskforce and Devon and Plymouth Chamber of Commerce at the Chamber’s City Conversations event.
The Code gives lots of handy hints and tips such as encouraging the use of reusable cups, making sure events are eco-friendly by using recyclable materials including cups, plates and cutlery, and thinking about packaging when ordering supplies.
Since Plymouth’s Plan for Plastics was launched in June 2018:
- 118 schools, community groups, families and individuals have signed up to be Plastic Free Community Ambassadors and 102 local businesses have signed up to be Plastic Free Pioneers as part of the work led by Environment Plymouth;
- 800 volunteers took part in 160 litter picks with local community group Clean Our Patch, and collected 4,000 bags of litter;
- 748 volunteers have taken part in beach cleans with Plymouth Beach Clean Volunteers and collected 261 bags of rubbish and 5,000 ‘nurdles’ (small plastic pellets used in a number of products);
- CATERed who provide school meals for 67 of Plymouth’s secondary schools have removed 8,000 plastic straws, removed disposable plastic packaging and moved over to biodegradable;
- A Sea Bin has been installed by Plymouth City Council at Queen Anne’s Battery as part of a pilot project to monitor plastic pollution with the University of Plymouth;
- The council has pledged to ban single use plastics on all its premises by September 2019.
Please note – this was published when Labour controlled Plymouth City Council between 2018-2021.
