Pocklington Post, Thursday 1 May 2008, Cover Story

Declaring War on Plastic Bags

Pocklington could become a plastic bag free zone – as a local campaign to ban them from the town gathers pace.

The town’s Fairtrade and Local Produce Action Group (Pocklington Flag) is gauging support from local shops and businesses and says the response so far has been positive.

Chairman of Flag and town councillor Martin Cooper said the main aim was to benefit the environment. “You only have to travel the A1079 to Hull to see the amount of plastic bags stuck in the hedges. The statistics are frightening, 1.2 trillion plastic bags per annum that do not biologically degrade, 90 per cent of marine litter is plastic, killing 100,000 million marine animals per year.”

Pocklington’s drive to become plastic bag free is believed to be the first such scheme in the East Riding…

…The majority of Pocklington’s shops are independent and the businesses that are part of chains have also said they are interested. Pocklington’s three supermarkets, Co-op, Sainsbury’s and Somerfield, have all given support to the idea.