Frome’s Green district councillor for Keyford, cllr Shane Collins, will put a motion for Mendip District Council to become single-use plastic-free, at the full council meeting on 18th December.
The issue of plastic waste, and its damaging effect on the environment, particularly on marine life, is of increasing public concern, and was highlighted recently by the BBC TV series Blue Planet.
The motion to council states that, according to the latest research, eight million tons of plastic waste makes its way into the world’s oceans each year. The consequences of plastic pollution on the marine environment are severe. Once in the ocean, plastic waste injures and kills fish, sea birds and marine mammals. Fatalities result from ingestion, starvation, suffocation, infection, drowning, and entanglement. Moreover, plastic is not inert and chemical additives, some of them endocrine disruptors (which interfere with the body’s hormone system), can migrate into body tissue and enter the food chain, ultimately ending up on our plates.
To combat this challenge, cllr Collins wants Mendip to be a showcase for reducing plastic usage and waste. If passed, the motion would commit Mendip to phasing out the use of single-use plastics such as bottles, cups, cutlery and drinking straws in all council activities by April 2018, and encouraging its facilities’ users and local businesses to do the same by championing alternatives, such as reusable water bottles.
Cllr Collins said, “There are reusable and biodegradable alternatives to all single-use plastics, so a few small changes in the products we use could mean big reductions in the amount of plastic waste we produce as a district. This is an opportunity for Mendip to lead by example in tackling a serious environmental threat.”
