“A typical single-use plastic bag is used for around 11 minutes, yet it’s estimated to take over 450 years to break down.”
Due to Woodbridge residents’ aspirations to move away from plastic bags, Transition Woodbridge is helping Woodbridge Greengrocers remove single-use plastic bags for their customers and will be encouraging them instead to bring their own re-usable bag.
However, as customers, we all have times when we forget to bring our own bag. Sometimes we can manage with no bag at all, juggling all the way home, but if it’s raining or we’re not great jugglers, it can be difficult to refuse a single-use plastic bag.
Don’t panic! In case of ‘bag emergencies’, Woodbridge Greengrocers and Transition Woodbridge have teamed up to ensure customers can borrow a Transition Woodbridge ‘Borrow Bag’, which they then return to the shop on their next visit “in the state you would wish to receive it in”.
Borrow Bags are free to borrow. They have been made from unwanted, unusable cotton or polycotton material, therefore reducing waste to landfill and upcycling waste into a useful product. All bags are made by a group of fantastic volunteers, with inspiration from Fiona and her team at Fiona’s Fabric, Gobbitt’s Yard and the Felixstowe Borrow Bag scheme launched in 2018.
Charlie Zakss, of Transition Woodbridge, said
“It’s great to be able to help local Woodbridge businesses embrace the Transition Woodbridge ethos, it’s been hard work making all the bags but it will be very satisfying to see our bags in local residents hands around Woodbridge and know we’re all making a difference”
Chris Harrold, of Woodbridge Greengrocers, said
“one of the best things about a local greengrocer is that customers can buy 90% of their fruit and vegetables unwrapped and plastic free. If we then put customer’s produce in a plastic bag at the checkout, it goes against some of the environmental saving. With Transition Woodbridge’s help we hope to get rid of all plastic carrier bags used in the greengrocers, and they have helped us think about our other plastic use – for example we’ve now moved to ‘naked’ cut flowers, which takes another chunk of single-use plastic out of circulation”
Would you like to join in making borrow bags? Do you have material or cotton reels surplus to requirement that you would like donate?
Please go to our borrow bags page here where you will find instructions or email us at hello@transition.woodbridge.org.uk.