Plastic bag ban gets backing (From Bucks Free Press)

Plastic bag ban gets backing

10:59am Friday 14th December 2007 in News

HIGH Wycombe could become completely free of plastic bags after a campaign to rid the town of them received the council's support.

Wycombe District Council (WDC) has announced it will back the plan to clear the new Eden shopping centre of carriers and even said it was pushing to banish them from the entire town.

During a full council meeting on Monday night, Mohammed Rafiq, (lab, Sands), asked if members would be supporting the proposals championed by High Wycombe's Environment Centre and Wycombe Friends of the Earth.

In reply Lesley Clarke, WDC leader, said: "There's been a lot of discussion with quite a few groups. We have been discussing with the centre manager for Eden (Daniel Tomkinson) and Bill Pollard, centre manager of the Chilterns, to see how we can extend this campaign to the rest of High Wycombe town.

"Certainly we're planning to implement it in Eden."

More than 1,000 people have added their names to a petition saying they would support a plastic bag free Eden, but it is up to the 106 individual shops, which are moving into the centre to decide if they will ban them when it opens in March.

Frances Alexander, Environment Centre trustee, said she was delighted WDC had decided to throw its weight behind the campaign.

She said: "I think if the council will kindly keep going on it, it will be absolutely wonderful.

"I'm very pleased that so many people are taking it very seriously. We have got to start taking our world seriously."

The idea to rid the town of plastic bags was first published in the Free Press after Jill Shiu and her husband Stephen, from Ashburnham Drive, Walters Ash, suggested the concept, which later attracted the attention of the Environment Centre and Friends of the Earth.