WGHS
eco-angels
Re - Think the Plastic Bag Campaign
Being part of Re – Thinking the Plastic Bag campaign was such an awesome opportunity.
Mrs Reid and I(Ms Angappan) participated in this campaign for a day during the one week school holidays.
We were positioned in Woolworths and we spoke to the customers about why plastic bags were detrimental to the environment.
We noticed that quite a few customers were already using re – usable bags.
Some customers did have re – usable bags but did not remember to put them back into their cars after using them.
We also did manage to get some customers to buy in to this campaign. We were further encouraged by customers that gave us a couple minutes of their time to listen to the disadvantages of using plastic.
Woolworths was quite into this campaign and had free re – usable bags to give out.
Overall the experience was very informative and encouraging.
A few learners were also involved in this campaign.
We hope to have more learner participation next year. We hope to have this campaign earlier in the year as this will improve the learner participation.
Below see the letter from the campaign manager, from the Westville Community, Sarah Alsen, who organised the entire campaign.
Dear Store Managers (and Teachers! and volunteers!)
Not quite the last you have heard from me yet.....! but thought the latter was significant enough to share with you.
NOT THAT WE WANT THE CAPE TO TAKE TOO MANY ACCOLADES OVER KZN (!!) but I have to quote item 1 below, just in from the national Rethink the Bag (RTB) initiative:
1. " Greenpoint SPAR very successfully launched their plastic bag free Thursdays yesterday. Although they did not feel they could go with a TOTAL ban of bags, rather easing into this – they still sold only 220 plastic bags compared to 450 the day before, so an approx. 50% reduction. They sold 50 reusable bags (made by Lily and her ladies of the UMOJA community upliftment project – Lily is thrilled at the future potential here…) this SPAR store ordered 200 green and red bags from UMOJA. They were sold at R15.99 - making no profit. All signage is to remain in place every day from here on. There is also a large selection of boxes as one enters the store, along with explanatory signage. Next Thursday there will be one student posted at the entrance to engage with customers and encourage them to immediately place a box or two into their trolley before they even begin shopping. There is more signage planned for the parking area and banners are also being printed."
So they are going for it, hooray! Also see attached lovely photo of a cashier and till point. And we can pick up on their valuable learnings if we run the campaign again next year (.....I know the schools were keen, Store Managers).
BUT NOW FOR THE KZN GOOD NEWS, and again I quote Hayley McLellan from the national campaign in CT, based at the Two Oceans Aquarium:
"I received an e mail via the RTB site on Friday last week from a DA Member of Parliament who returns home to Westville KZN on weekends and happened to pick up a flyer from where Sarah and her team ran RTB plastic bag awareness about 3 weeks back. Him and his team had recently started asking big questions of Ministry of Finance regarding plastic bag revenue over the past decade related to actual spend on Environmental Affairs. When he saw this RTB flyer he promptly got in touch with me. I met with him and his two colleagues yesterday. They took me for lunch in Parliament…wow.. There is too much information to feed back here so, suffice it to say that we have some positively solid plans laid out before us. I will be hosting them for an official presentation here at the aquarium next week. This shows me that every effort counts, who would have thought that a request for campaign support from another province would produce such a MASSIVE result…? Well done Sarah + her team!"
So, every little bit counts .... well done team!
Finally, I promised one of the store managers some links to more material below, which I hope you will all find informative. The Youtube clips are definitely worthwhile watching. I will also forward after this mail a rather disturbing but beautifully shot 3 minute film - which again makes my resolve all the more, to do what little we as individuals, can.