Hopefully everything you ever wanted to know about going plastic bag free and more.
Written by R.Hosking. October 2007

Infinitely more important than How, is WHY!!!

I think a question you should ask yourself is why you are interested in taking up this little campaign?
The way I see it, if anyone is doing anything that genuinely benefits our environment then the ultimate motivation is not so important. At this point in time, the environment needs help from all of us, all the way from greedy hypocrites to the green purists. However, if you are trying to convince others in your community to change then I suspect you may find the task easier if you are driven more by green than greed.

The reason the bag campaign worked so well here and in other places is because we learnt the lesson that to lead your community down the path of green thinking you have to walk a far greater distance yourself in the hope of getting your traders to even take the first baby steps. I'm not asking you to turn yourself into a yogurt-weaving hippie, just start to think, really think and question the broader issue.

What is the broader issue?

Well I'll let this guy tell you, he puts it into words far better then I.
This is Ray Anderson, one of the worlds most wealthy and powerful CEO's.

I really hope he will start to make you think.

If the video link is not working here is a direct link to the page so you can watch it. website

How to:

A foreword:

In June 2007 Danny Kennedy, the campaigns manager for Greenpeace Australia-Pacific said:

"I see the case of reusable bags as fairly superficial, but also very useful..The best thing about the plastic bag campaign is that people recognized the ecological world view; that everything is linked. It's also very empowering that so many people have engaged, and so quickly. If that's people's first entry point into taking action, then it's fantastic. Their first taste is a win. But governments can't think that's the only thing."

I hope he's right!

Certainly, for Modbury, the bag campaign has made us start to question how and where products are made, how they are transported and where they go when we're finished with them. It's made us look at all consumer goods in a different light. It's a start but there is a lot more we all have to do.

My personal view is that the disposable plastic bag is the icon of our unsustainable lifestyles. I know that removing plastic bags from our lives won't make us a sustainable culture anymore than saving the polar bear will stop global warming. However, plastic bags and polar bears will make us all stop and think about the bigger picture.

[December 2007 update]
Here (below) is a little pep talk in the hope it inspires you.
It's from one of my lifelong heros - Dr E.O. Wilson.
I'd like to think it applies to anyone working to protect their local environment, no matter how great or small their personal achievement,
it all counts.

If you are having trouble watching this film,
please log onto the web page directly: weblink

But one step at a time lets get you started on those bags.

The first thing to realize is how conditioned we are to think that as a society we can't possibly live without plastic bags. WELL WE CAN. And it's easy.
I think this is probably the hardest thing to get across to some people.

In Modbury as with other communities up and down the country, we are living proof that we don't need them.
To begin making the change, you have to start asking the question
"what else can we use for that purpose?"
and sure enough you will find responsible alternatives to every function a plastic bag has to offer.

Now before you think
"Oh my goodness finding all these solutions sounds like an impossible task".
It really isn't, it's very simple.
If you use Modbury as an example, the solutions come in the shape of cloth reusable bags, vegetable starch bags, paper bags and recycled cardboard boxes. Each shop here uses either one or a mixture of the above four to solve their bag needs.
All we had to do is work out which solution works best in which shop.

However, the main aim of the Modbury campaign is to encourage people to use a reusable bag, it's the most environmentally friendly due to it lasting a long time and being totally compostable at the end of its long life. It is now thought that an average cloth bag in its lifetime will save the owner from using at least a 1000 plastic bags.

All of our disposable alternative bags are charged out to the customer. This is to cover the cost and to dissuade the customer from taking them.
By charging we have seen a 90% reduction in use of disposable bags across the town.

The most important factor in making this work is for a community to work together and communicate with each other. Get all the traders involved on what ever level they are happy with, leave nobody out and come to joint agreements on everything.
Keep the decision making simple. You will find you have to do a lot of the leg work yourself so ask the traders simple a or b type questions otherwise you will go round in circles. But make sure traders are all involved enough to not feel decisions and ideas have been thrust upon them.

If you would like to read a general overview of how the traders and myself went about it here in Modbury, then please read this article I wrote for the Guardian back in May 2007.
Guardian Link

So how does this page work:

On this page you will find a simple step-by-step guide of how we did it, then below a more detailed frequently asked questions section.
When reading the guide if you want any more details simply drop down to the FAQ's for more information.
Please remember this is only how we did it here in Modbury, other communities have gone about becoming plastic bag free in different ways.

We advise you use our information only as a free reference and think for yourself how you can apply and alter it to fit with your community needs.

A Simple Step-By-Step Guide.

Learn about what detrimental effects plastics are doing to the environment. Look at our facts page. Weblink

Find out the level of support in your community and with the traders.

Approach traders officially through their chamber of trade/commerce.

Research and find alternatives bags.

Organize a mass meeting to discuss the possibility of change over.

Bring along any visual guides and information so that the traders understand what plastic bags are doing to our environment. Also bring along alternatives bag samples to the meeting so that traders can examine them.

If you have "Yes we're doing it" at the end of the meeting, set a launch date that you can work to.

Get all the traders to sign a gentleman's agreement through the chamber of trade/commerce stating they are going to take part and abide to the change for whatever length of time you see fit.

Organize regular group meetings for traders, or representatives of the traders to work out how to run the campaign.

Advised topics to cover in the meetings:

How you are going to fund the campaign start up costs?
(There is no reason why these costs should be high)

What types of alternative bags you are going to use.

Pricing of bags for customers (we heavily recommend blanket prices on each of the bags across the town so that all the traders are united in their pricing).

If you are going for a community bag (which again we highly recommend) work out bag design.

Information for customers - Work out design of posters and postcards and leaflets informing customers what is going to happen and why.
In Modbury we have posters in each shop informing customers about our campaign, and bag charges.

Work out responses that traders and their staff can say when dealing with customers who ask for plastic bags.

Organize a launch with a handout of cloth bags so that the residents have the opportunity of receiving at least one free bag per household.

How to dispose of all the old plastic bags that are currently in use i.e recycling them not throwing them out for the dustman.

Ordering your new alternative bags - work out who is going to do this or how you go about it.

Notification of your residents when the changeover is going to take place. Our letter to the residents is our mission statement Weblink

Lastly try your best to stick to your launch date; otherwise it can get confusing for everyone involved.

And there you have it.

Before contacting us with a question please read our FAQ's.

Frequently asked questions
The top nine questions we are constantly asked.

Where can I get a copy of the film Rebecca showed the traders of Modbury?
To get a copy of Rebecca's film, please read this add.

If we don't use plastic bags what do we use for food hygiene, waterproof bags, bin liners, and bags for dog poo?
Simple answer = cornstarch bags.
They look like plastic, feel like plastic and act like plastic, but are made from a vegetable base and totally compostable.
Please read the bottom half of our "bag info" page to find out why putting food waste in plastic bags for the dustman is seriously adding to landfill problems (According to WRAP), and has the danger of creating methane.
"Bag info page"
Plus here is a link to a really useful BBC page that lists environmental ways to clean up after your dog (these idea's can be applied for cats too).Website
To find wholers details please click here Wholesaler page

What has this campaign done for trade to the town?
Well it certainly hasn't harmed trade.
Before writing the answer to this question, I went and asked several of the traders what they thought. As ever it depends on who you ask. If their shop was more geared towards the tourist market they seem to have done pretty well; but if their business is not aimed at that market then it seems to be business as usual.
None of the traders have said it has brought a loss to the town, and all agreed with the tourist information that it has brought a lot more foot traffic to the streets to see how we do it.
So to round up - we haven't seen a huge boost to the trade, more a small bounce but it has not deterred or put customers off one bit.

However each trader I talked to said the same thing when I asked him or her this question.
"Rebecca you know we didn't do it for that reason why are people asking this?"
Simple, I know people ask this question because they need to reassure their traders that by taking on this campaign they are not going to be out of pocket.

How many customer complaints have you had?
I would be lying to say we have had none.
The complaints have come due to us charging for all our bags, however the amount of verbal complaints the traders have received has been far far smaller than we expected.
At the beginning the traders braced themselves for an onslaught but this never happened.
Within the resident community there were a few grumbles from some at first but within a month this had completely died down.
Once again it depends on the type of business. Places like the Co-op, and our two takeaways have had to deal with the most complaints, but if you think about it, these three shops are the sort we are so used to being handed a free bag. They are also the three business that are open at night, so part of their custom at that time is people rolling out of the pubs with a hunger.

Today I popped round to ask staff in all three businesses how things were going. They all said that the residents now are as good as gold, it's just the occasional tourist who is unaware of what has happened here that will make some smart Alec comment, but you are always going to get people like that. On a more positive note for every snide comment, the traders have received a 100 "Well dones" and "Good for you's".
The praise has substantially out-weighed the complaints and has left the traders rightly feeling proud of what they have achieved.

Can I use your wildlife images for our campaign for free?
Unfortunately my images are shared copyright with the BBC, so they are off limits I'm afraid.
However there are some royalty free images on the net, we actually ended up buying the use of a couple from a photo library.
But here are some links to images you can use for free.
Planet Ark1
NOAA1
NOAA2
Reusable bags
Planet Ark2

Note: very important please always give credit to the photographer and/or the organization listed with the image.
If none of these are to your taste there are others just type into Google images "marine debris".
But always make sure the image is royalty free, (email the contact of the webpage)
Alternatively if you have the budget to pay for an image, check out the online natural history and marine wildlife image/photo libraries.
There are some cracking images out there, however if you go this route be ready to pay anything between GBP 100 to 500 per image depending on what you're going to use it for.

Will one of the Modbury traders or Rebecca please come and give a public talk at our community?
We are going to have to politely decline, we're really sorry.
If you'd like to read our explanation this is a very valid reason.

At first we were inundated to the extreme with the amount of invitations and requests to speak that it just was all too much and overwhelming so we just politely declined all.

After a while we felt a huge responsibility and thought we should try to attend at least some, but then felt dreadful that we couldn't make it to others who asked. We also hated letting people down so really tried our best but there are only a couple of us confident enough to actually do public speaking and the time spent in other communities began to eat into not just our personal time but into our work.

I think some people tend to forget we don't get paid for out time we are just normal Devon folk with jobs, we're just like you and no different.

So now we have had to take the decision to once again politely decline all invitations. However we do still feel a huge responsibly so this is why I have taken the time to update this site with every possible bit of information the traders and I can share with you so hopefully it helps you and many others.

I realise it's not the same as one of us coming to personally speak but if we carried on doing that we'd end up penny broke. Seriously I wish I was exaggerating but I'm not and I hope you can understand.
However before you get disappointed think of it like this you really don't need one of us there, we never had anyone talk to us when we started.

All the tools we can help you with are on these pages, the only thing we can't do is communicate this information directly to your community, for that it actually needs someone who is a local resident. We've learnt from experience it works far better if you talk to them in that meeting than if we do. You know who you are talking to, we don't. So you will know how to appeal to them when we wont, you can do it far better than we ever could.

But we have a takeaway, a butcher, a fishmonger, a vet, charity shops; we can't possibly expect them to do this?
My answer to that is well don't expect the other traders to be happy that some shops have been made the exception before you even get started. If you choose this route you are going to start discord in the trading community.

We decided pretty early on it was all or nothing, we have two takeaways, a butcher, a vet, and a charity shop - they are all happily on board and they all use the alternative bags.
The takeaways as well as using paper and cornstarch bags also use recycled boxes to carry their food containers on large orders.
The charity shop now uses donated paper and cornstarch bags and cardboard boxes where once it used donated plastic bags.
The food shops and for hygiene all use cornstarch counter bags to wrap their food such as dairy and meat in.
Additionally our veterinary surgery uses the cornstarch too.
Please take a look at the traders page to see the diversity in the shops, and they are all onboard.
Weblink

Isn't this like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut? Why not just recycle plastic bags instead of banning them?
Currently in the UK we only recycle one out of every 200 bags we use, so the government tell us. The rest goes to landfill. Reports have suggested that 47% of windborne litter comes from landfill much of this plastic bags.

However if we improved our rate of recycling you can still only recycle plastic bags 4 to 5 times at best before the plastic becomes such a low-grade material that it is useless, some call this downcycling. Many plastic bags in this country if recycled here ( and not shipped to China) are recycled into binliners, which obviously then are used to go to landfill.
Each time a plastic or paper bag is recycled they have to add a certain amount of new material to that product to keep up the quality that we the consumer demand.
Now paper is by no means without its own problems but it biodegrades and if you pick wisely you can pick from a source that is renewable. Obviously with plastic you haven't got the renewable choice open to you because it's made from petroleum. So even by recycling you are using finite resources for a product we do not need and can live happily without. The best thing to make plastic bags into is future or a product which is durable
But don't take my word about recycling plastic bags here's Marcus Eriksen, Ph.D., and director of Research and Education, Algalita Marine Research Foundation talking about it Weblink

Have any traders gone back to using plastic bags?
(This is the number one question from the media.)
No - they haven't.

Lots more questions answered here!

Use these answers with our step-to-step guide above!

Where do I start?
First off learn about what plastic is doing to the environment, you can start with our Facts Page
I've tried my best to give you as much information as possible with loads of links so that you can pick and choose from this to either create a booklet or presentation for your trading community.

Note: This is probably the most important part and not a stage to over look. For me this was the most powerful tool I had in changing opinion. Once you educate the traders to what is happening and they realize the enormity of the problem, most will want to help to make a difference straightaway.
However, you are going to run into traders that will say the likes of
"Its only a plastic bag, big deal?"
so you need the knowledge first to respond politely and educate them.


Did Modbury get funding and how about the local council?
No we didn't, but I know other councils have given out grants and funding so it seems to be luck of the draw.
However if you have an unresponsive local council then don't let that put you off. It didn't with us; The start up costs were not that great at all, the traders actually funded the campaign themselves they all put in GBP50.00 each.
This was to pay for bag design, printing of posters and information cards and design of this website. The most expensive of all these was this website.

How long did it take you to do this changeover in Modbury?
One month, but that was non-stop heavy going. I would advise you set yourselves at least 3 months - if not longer.

How do start I contacting the traders/ how did you do it?
Simple answer: Try talking to them, engage them in conversation.
Start with the traders you know, or you have had previous contact with and work out from there. See how much of a positive response you get from them. If the majority of them are supportive then you have the start of a campaign on your hands.

How about traders I don't know?
If you have a trader who is already supportive and they know this person in question get them to ask on your behalf, or ask them to accompany you to make introductions. Also if you have really supportive traders, get them to help you spread the word.
Lastly if you have any traders who have a higher standing in the trading community, try and win them over first. Their involvement will help you no end in encouraging the others.

How about the residents?
For many reasons - mainly to do with concerns about the plastic industry - we never went that public about what we were doing until just before the launch.
However, I know other following communities have sent out questionnaires to all the residents to see what the level of support would be. I haven't yet heard of a community questionnaire that has come back negative.
Alternatively, as with Saltash and Lyme Regis, you can organize an open day/ evening for all residents to attend and gauge the level of support from that.

What if I have a trader/traders not wanting to join in?
We never had an independent trader stating they were not going to do it; however, we did have a couple that did sit on the fence and weren't convinced at first.
Hearing reports from the other towns, I think everyone has run into this situation where they get one or two traders who are just not interested.

The way we dealt with this was to not make an issue of it and create bad feeling, but to get a trader who is friends with them to quietly have a word and listen to their concerns.
Remember that even if an individual isn't interested in participating, they are still a community member and entitled to their opinions. However, opinions often change with more information.

In Modbury we found out what their concerns were and the other traders rallied to help them address those worries very quickly and discreetly.

What you also find is after a while there is a tipping point when you have nearly all the traders onboard and nobody wants to be left out. Well at least that's what happened here.

How about if I have a supermarket or chain store in my town?
Is seems that the tide is turning with the supermarkets; they are now beginning to listen.
The first one onboard simply by virtue of being in Modbury was the Coop.
I have to say they have been so supportive and all the traders in Modbury and I are full of praise for them. I also hear that the Coop at Hebden bridge has been equally helpful and joined in.

I know that the Plymouth and Southwest Coop have been advising other Coops up and down the country on how to go plastic bag free. They now have a leaflet that they are sending out which has lots of useful tips on how to become PBF.
So if you do have a Coop in your town, my advice would be to contact the general area manager and either get that manger to directly contact PSW Coop or alternatively you can write to them for advice.
Note: but before doing that please read this site carefully because a lot of your questions will already be answered here and it saves you having to bother the Coop unnecessarily.
For the Coop, email their press office for details.
Website

If you have a Waitrose, I know they have been supportive of the Saltash campaign, I advise you make contact with the wonderful guys at S.E.A Saltash to find out how they convinced them. Website

For all supermarkets and nationals, this is what I recommend.
This is a mix of how we did it and how other communities are going about doing it.

Right at the start of your campaign find out who is the area manger for that branch and make contact informing them of your plans.
Of all the shops the nationals will need a little more time because it has to go through their chain of command. It's very different to dealing with an independent trader where you can just walk into their shop and talk directly to the owner.

When you make initial contact you are going to get one of three responses;

A: Yes we will be happy to help and we are interested.

B: We are unsure/need to consult higher up/can we think about it.
(This is really them saying we are not going to commit until we see the level of support from the other traders)

C: No we are not interested.

Okay so how to deal with those responses:

A: Yes we will,
Brilliant you have their support you are off and running, keep in contact with them and invite a representative from that store to your traders meetings from then on in.
This is so that they feel part of the campaign and this also soon squashes any "them and us" negative feeling between themselves and the independent traders.

B: That fine, So leave that store alone for the time work with all the other traders get them all or at least a large majority to verbally agree.
Then make contact with that big store again informing them of the level of support in the community, and ask them for their response.
If it feels appropriate invite them to meet with you and some of the traders in person to discuss the change over in more detail.
Their main fears are going to be whether it will affect their trade and will their staff have to deal with a lot of customer complaints.

To put their minds at ease, the best example I can give is the PSW Coop who not only went plastic bag free here in Modbury but also pushed it out to six other stores in Devon and Cornwall.
The actual towns did NOT go plastic bag free just the Coop stores.
In all the stores they have not seen an increase or decrease in business it has stayed the same and this is with all the other shops around them still issuing plastic bags.
In the first couple of weeks they did received complaints but after that it soon settled down and it was business as usual (with a big green star!)

Also these stores are not just in quiet villages. One of these Coop stores is in a busy part of Torquay and has had a huge amount of support and very little negativity.

The other way to encourage a national is to introduce a six month trial period and see how it goes in this one store. This protects the company
from having to make a permanent commitment and roll it out across all their stores.
Ask them to use the store in your hometown as a test case and if it doesn't work then we all go back, but at least we all tried.
By saying this to the Coop here it really helped to get their full support.

However if they are still sitting on the fence and not really communicating they then fall into response C below.

C: (No we are not interested)
I really hope that doesn't happen.
We never had personal experience of this and I suspect it is an unlikely response.

Every national chain markets itself on being a supportive member of any community where it has branches. The last thing they want is the negative publicity that comes from being seen not living up to their self proclaimed community supporting image.
Marketing and PR are the big stores greatest weapons in a highly competitive market but are also their Achilles heels if they are not following words with actions.

So far, every plastic bag free campaign has attracted substantial media attention and no large store with any kind of marketing department would want to run the risk of a headline like "Supermarket only store in town refusing to participate in community environmental campaign"

The most important thing is to make it clear that the supermarket/chain store is welcome to join in whenever they like and will be welcomed with open arms.

How did you get such a high percentage of your traders to turn up to your initial meeting and what did you discuss?
To entice the traders to come a long I used every trick in the book.
I managed (very easily it has to be said) to convince one of my friends who owns a beautiful large art gallery in the town to donate the space for the night she also donated loads of free wine.
I managed to convince one of the local pubs to lay on loads and loads of finger food and canapes for free, and I organized a screening of my BBC Natural World film, Message in the Waves for all the traders to come and watch. Website

On the invitations I made it quite clear that the traders were to be well fed and watered all night if they turned up.
(I think that was a big enticement for many)

I realised if I was going to suggest that we needed to get rid of plastic bags then I needed to be able to give the traders alternatives they could replace them with. So I phoned round the country and managed to gather together samples of about 15 different ranges of alternative bags.

There was everything from jute, cotton, hemp, cornstarch, potato starch to straw, silk, recycled paper and SCF paper.
Two wholesalers even kindly turned up to promote their brands that evening.
Please look our Bag info page for a guide of what to lookout for and ask.

On that night, as each trader arrived, I got one of my friends to hand them a small printed booklet which I had made on my home printer, this listed all the reasons why I thought we should make this change.

You can find all that information I gave on our facts page to help you prepare your own talk/presentation/booklet Plastic Facts
We then all watched the film and afterwards the traders mingled and were able to examine the bag alternatives.
The chosen favourites from that night are now on our wholesaler page.
Bag Wholesalers

We then had an open floor debate and took a vote, with a resounding yes. We decided that there should be a bag committee (a mix of traders who represented each of the different areas of business)
and set a date to launch. Lastly we arranged a time to have our first bag committee meeting.
This group of traders that made up the bag committee I later nicknamed my generals - I couldn't have done this without them. Today they are the ones who run this campaign; ordering the bags, making sure the day-to-day running is going smoothly and dealing with the press.

When you say gentleman's agreement what do you mean by that?
This was a very simple agreement that all the traders signed.
It was devised by the head of Modbury's chamber of commerce. It isn't legally binding because we can't/won't enforce penalties on traders if they break the agreement.
However this has been a really good way of bonding everyone together and keeping them on track. To date nobody has broken it.

The wording on the letter simply said something along the lines of:
I the undersigned, ******* of ****** shop agree that I will not issue, sell or give any plastic bags to any customer from this date..

It is signed and dated on Chamber of Commerce headed paper.

What do you mean by Community reusable bag?
Although we have cornstarch and paper bags, we try and encourage people to use a reusable bag.

This is in the form of a cotton bag with the Modbury Bag design printed on the side.
We highly recommend you launch your own community/town bag, even if you don't ban the use of plastic bags because this does give the customer the option of reducing their waste.

We call this bag our identity bag, it is very popular with the residents and tourists alike.
The traders decided to charge it out as low as possible to encourage the customers to buy them and use them.
There is a 5p mark up from the wholesale price on the larger bag to cover costs of printing posters, leaflets and the website. The smaller bags are sold at cost price.

The traders did not want to make a personal profit on any bags because they just wanted the bags out there and being used.
The Modbury bag is seen here as an environmental service not a way to make money. Anyway you wouldn't make a profit on a plastic bag so why make a profit on a cloth one?

Some towns have put their traders names on bags, others have had the bag sponsored by a business or group (that is entirely up to you).

We took the approach that is wasn't about individual shops or businesses it was all of us working together as a team, so the bag design is very simple - it just says Modbury.
The business minded amongst you may appreciate a comment made by one of our traders who wisely pointed out-
"What is good for Modbury as a town, has to be good for our businesses!"

Why do you have disposable bags? You should only use cloth reuseable ones?
Two reasons: first I think some people get confused and think we have only done away with plastic carrier bags, we have actually gone one step further we have done away with all plastic shopping bags.

The traders agreement is:
If they put an item/product into a bag that is then handed to the customer it is not to be made from plastic.

This is everything from a tiny pair of earrings to a side of beef; from a Kilo of peanuts to a GBP400.00 piece of cut glass. Nothing is to be handed to the customer in a plastic bag.

The only ones we can't get round for now are the bakers sliced bread and the butchers pre-wrapped chickens because they are already pre-sealed (but we are working on it).

Which leads onto a letter that a nice American gentleman wrote to tell us that we should use hemp bags instead of cornstarch because hemp is far more environmentally friendly.
I told our Deli owner this who replied
"Yeah, ever tried wrapping a piece of cheesecake in hemp- not pretty!"

We do also supply (at a price) disposable cornstarch and paper carrier bags if requested by the customer.
In a perfect world everyone would remember to bring their reuseable bags with them and the traders would not need to sell the disposable alternatives.

But, with the vast majority of the rest of the country still issuing plastic bags people coming into the town forget or don't realise what is happening here (and some of our residents still forget at times).
So the traders do have these disposable alternatives but they are sold at either 5p for the cornstarch or 10p for the paper.

The traders were very insistent that this option be available because they didn't want to run into the situation of a customer getting to the till and realising they were going to have to pay a minimum of GBP1 for a cloth bag, throwing their hands in the air and marching out the shop.

However, charging that 5p or 10p has made people question whether they actually need a bag and in most cases they don't.
Consequently, we have seen a 90% reduction in the use of disposable carrier bags.

Hopefully in time we can phase out the disposables altogether but at the moment we are in a necessary transitional stage. If plastic bags were our self-destructive addiction then lets look at cornstarch and paper bags as methadone.

This campaign has always been a balance between trying to do our best for the environment whilst not affecting trade. The only way this is going to work here and inspire other traders to follow is if it does not deter business.

How did you work out which shop needed which alternative bags?
This turned out to be a laborious task and I'm sure there is a far easier way of doing it. But, this is how I did it.

When I first approached each of the traders I politely asked if I could have one of each their different sized plastic bags. This ranged from tiny ones from our beautician to huge great big ones from our potter.
After a few days my front room filled up with what seemed to be hundreds of plastic bags. I knew that I was going to have to find an alternative version of each bag.

On each plastic bag with a marker pen I wrote the shop's name and what the bag was used for. Then I grouped the bags together into use, style and size. I realized that even though the traders issued dozens of different styles of plastic bags there were some real similarities between them.

The gift shops, beautician, hairdresser , hat shop, optician, art gallery and jeweller all used bags that were essentially pretty.

The vet, chemist, deli, doctors surgery, butcher, Coop, pubs, takeways and greengrocer all used bags largely for hygiene.

The ironmonger, potter, antique shops etc used bags for strength.

So as well as the cloth carrier bags I need to find alternatives that would match those three major requirements.

You have to remember you and who ever else is running this campaign in your town is going to have to do a lot of legwork.
The traders all have their businesses to run and that is at the forefront of their minds so you have to work round them, try not to get under their feet and make every choice for them as simple as possible.
Basically you have to do the homework for them.

I kept it to three types of bag so that it made ordering easy for the traders and we could order as a town in bulk thus saving on carriage and carbon miles. The mix of these three bags (cloth, cornstarch and paper) fitted everyone's needs. We then just worked out who need what size and style of bag and how many and got an order in from each shop.

What if a trader wants their name printed on their own bag?
Fine, if a trader wants their own bag printed then great, however my advice is if they want to do that then that's up to them; don't get involved its not your problem. But remember the key to Modbury's success is that we work as a collective not as individuals competing against each other.

Why do you charge for your disposable bags?
As I mentioned above one of the most important reasons for charging is to discourage customers from using them.
There are also practical considerations: a sustainably manufactured alternative to a plastic bag is always going to be more expensive to produce.
Plastic bags can be purchased for as little 8 for a penny making "free" givaway a financial possibility for the smallest trader.
However, more ethical alternatives like cornstarch and paper can be anything from 4 pence a bag and upwards. No small business can afford to give them away with every purchase.
The initial decision to charge for bags was not an easy one to make for fear of alienating customers who were so accustomed to getting a free bag.
However, time has shown it was definitely the correct decision.
It has allowed the campaign to be successful and made the important point to customers that there is, in fact, no such thing as free bag. Just because costs are hidden doesn't mean they don't exist.

And, just to re-iterate, hardly anyone has complained about having to purchase a bag.

Why do you blanket price your bags across the town?
The traders all charge the same for bags to show town unity. It stops any backbiting and grumbles from the customers.

To give you a good example of why we do this, right at the beginning of the campaign we had a glitch.
One day one of the Coop staff politely pulled me aside to tell me that the till operators were getting it in the neck from the customers about the Coop charging for the cornstarch bags when other shops weren't.
What had happened was our Chemist, who was unable to attend the meeting about all the traders charging, was issuing the cornstarch bags for free.
Some of the Modbury residents had cottoned on to this and were going into the chemist buying something small say a packet of lozenges asking for a fee bag then running next door to the Coop and filling it up with their shopping.
So the Coop staff were getting grumbled at for charging for their bags, meanwhile our Chemist noticed his bag supply going down at a rate of knots and he was feeling the pinch.
Luckily this was all sorted very quickly and he is now charging.

How does Modbury order its new bags?
Three traders from the bag committee volunteered to take the towns order for each of the ranges of bags.
So one of our gift shops orders in the paper bags, another gift shop takes the orders for our cloth bags and our butcher orders in the cornstarch.
All the other traders then collect their assignment of bags from those three shops.
To stop any confusion in VAT the wholesalers write out individual bills for each of the 43 shops

What Information have you provided for customers?
We have several posters (and this really is a must do) which have helped the traders no end.
We have three forms of notification in the shops (you can see little images of them below).

The first is large striking blue poster with a photo of a dolphin playing with a plastic bag (The image was bought from a picture library).
The wording on this poster tells the customer briefly some stats on what damage plastic is doing to marine wildlife and informing them that this is why we do not issue plastic bags. This poster is put on each shop door or in a prominent position to catch the customer's eye as they walk in.



The second poster has the Modbury logo on it and is beside the till in each shop informing the customer of the bag prices and that the scheme is across the whole town. It then asks them to think of their waste and think whether they actually need a disposable bag.


This is the cornstarch poster, the paper bag poster is very similiar.

Lastly we have some postcards which on one side show a turtle and a tern (seabird) impacted by plastic bags and on the other side give a lot more detail as to why the traders have put charges on all the bags.
These postcards are to hand to customers who are unaware of what is happening here and so save the shop assistants and owners from constantly having to repeat themselves.
However, the traders haven't really had to use these postcards, they mainly get picked up by the tourists as a souvenir from Modbury.


The front and back of one of the postcards.
(All the inks on these posters are veggie and the paper is SCF.)

Should the traders train their staff before the changeover?
Absolutely, we highly recommend you do this.
Remember, when you started with your traders you may have had responses like "what is wrong with plastic bags I like them".
Many of their staff and shop assistants may still think that way so its really wise to get the traders to give their staff at least a briefing.
Better still, if they can really get them to understand the root of all of this and why you as a town are doing it.

The stance the traders and their staff take here is not to apologize for the charges. Be proud of what we are doing and stand firm.

How did you launch and who paid for the residents free start-up bags?
Our launch was a very simple affair, we sent out a letter to each household informing them of what was going to happen.
The letter is the mission statement on this site. Mission Statement

Each letter was wrapped around a cotton, fair-trade bag that the Coop very kindly donated to the scheme. We made sure that every household got one by hand delivering them through each letterbox. About 20 or so traders and I took to the streets, housing estates and outer lying farms.



I know of other towns that have sent out a flyer to each house so that the residents can come pick up the bags from a central point in the town, and other towns that have had launch days in the town's centre where they have handed out bags to passing residents.

The other way of acquiring free bags for your community is to contact the guys at Morsbags, and see if they maybe able to help.
Morsbags are a British based group of willing volunteers who use scrape cloth and sew them into bright colourful reusable bags.
Check out their Website
They are also on the lookout for any new volunteers who are handy with a sewing machine. For all Morsbags enquires please contact,
Pol Morsman, Email: admin@morsbags.com

Giving out a free start up bag is a really good idea it encourages the residents to take part in the scheme and also stops any grumbles about having to pay for a cloth bag.
"You got a free one, if you forgot to bring it with you then don't blame us."

Disposing of old plastic bags?
We sent all our bags off to become recycled plastic furniture because our council does not provide plastic bag recycling locally (At the time of writing this was still the case. It may have changed since).

If you find yourself in the same boat, then if you look on the net or thumb through the yellow pages there are a lot of private recycling firms out there that will come and pick up your bags. Some charge for the service and some don't.

What did you do on your changeover day?
The traders decided they wanted matching t-shirts to wear to celebrate what was happening and their achievement.
It was so lovely to see them walking around proudly in these blue and white matching tops. It also helped bring it to the attention of any customers who hadn't noticed what had happened.
Amazingly there were some who managed to blindly walk past half of Europe's press camped out on the pavement, the large eye catching posters adorning every shop window and the blue and white cloth bags dripping from every doorway.
It was only when they reached the till and were confronted with a walloping great big "plastic bag free" logo blazed across the traders chest that they actually looked round to see what was happening.


I have to say it was a fun and proud day for all of us involved.

How many reusable bags should we order?
The answer to this question really depends on the size of your community. Modbury has a population of about 1600.
In the first month the traders sold 2000 Modbury bags, there was an initial rush at the start but since then it has died down a lot.
In the next 5 months (and this includes the summer tourist season) the traders have sold another 4000, making it a total of 6000 in six months.
Now that we are in autumn and the tourists have all but gone very few bags are being sold; that in many ways is a good thing.
It means the residents are reusing their bags and they have no need to buy new ones.

Right, that's me doing the do. I can't possibly think of anything else I can answer or anything else you could ask me.

Please look at our Bag infobag
There you will find a guide of what I think you should watch out for when looking into alternative bags.

However if your question is still unanswered then please look our PBF community page to see links to other PBF websites sites, they have loads more information to help you.
The Hebden Bridge website is a very good place to start.

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