Can Bristol be a plastic-free city?

As an organisation whose mission is to tackle marine plastic pollution at source we at City to Sea have been tirelessly campaigning for Bristol to lead the way and be a ‘plastic-free city’. As a once major port city we could be setting the example for the rest of the world in stopping plastic pollution flowing out from city to sea. So it’s with relief that we’re now seeing support emerging from our city’s political leaders to tackle this global problem.

We aren’t talking about banning everything made of plastic, just those unnecessary items that are often used once then discarded forever – and we do mean forever as every piece of plastic every made is still in existence. Items like plastic drinks cups, take-away tubs and cutlery can all be substituted for environmentally sensitive products – or just not used in the first place. We’ve become accustomed to ‘disposing’ or throwing away all of these items without so much as a second thought, but they never really go away. They just flow somewhere else, most of it to landfill, as litter or on to pollute our oceans.

Once this plastic is in our seas and oceans it fragments into smaller pieces where it forms part of a dangerous ‘plastic smog’. These particles then attract other pollutants and are ingested by sea life, whereby the plastic works its way back up the food chain, growing in toxicity the higher it gets. (For the seafood lovers amongst us, it may be disheartening to hear that a third of UK-caught seafood now contains plastic particles.)

There has been plenty of attention on ‘microbeads’ in the press and in Parliament recently and the forthcoming ban is an excellent step forward in the fight against plastic pollution. Last month Norwich Council announced its plans to become a single-use plastic-free authority by the end of 2017. So we’re delighted that two of our city’s MPs, Kerry McCarthy and Thangam Debbonaire have decided to become plastic champions and will work to help us make Bristol a ‘plastic-free’ city – announced recently by Thangam in the Bishopston Voice. With a Labour mayor and City Council this can only speed-up the process, especially as the city’s Green Party has long been a supporter of such a move with another motion coming to Full Council this Tuesday and their MEP Molly Scott-Cato being a long-term supporter of our work.

Here are three things the city could do tomorrow to start us on that journey: 

We could ban the use and sale of single-use polystyrene and plastic cups, containers, cutlery, straws and bottles from all council owned properties, including all affiliated organisations and businesses leasing properties thus leading by example. Then we could extend that ban to include Bristol’s huge range of public events. Lastly we could pilot deposit return schemes for plastic bottles and incentivise a ‘refill’ culture across the city – helping to reduce the amount of waste making its way to landfill.

We’ve rapidly become a nation which chooses to throw everything away rather than use it again – and this ‘convenience culture’ of waste is killing our oceans and ultimately us too. It’s great that our city leaders have spoken-up on this environmental and public health issue but as ever, we hope that actions will speak loudest of all and that we can all be proud of Bristol becoming a single-use plastic-free city.

Natalie Fee is the founder of City to Sea, the organisation behind the Refill and Switch the Stick campaigns. 

Read more: Welcome to Wet Wipe Mountain