carrier bags of every description - except plastic

I copy an extract of John Vidal, environment editor, in the The Guardian Saturday April 28, 2007  which has inspired few people of Harrogate to start a campagne to have "Harrogate Plastic Bag Free". Please let me know what you think and if you can help alongside the "Shop Local First campaign"

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Welcome to Modbury. Just don't ask for a plastic bag

Modbury is the quintessential small West Country town. Set in a hollow among rolling Devon hills just a few miles from the sea, it has 760 households, a high street, three churches, a primary school, several pubs, two takeaways, a surgery, a small supermarket and 40 or so small shops.

Not much happens in Modbury. Some say the last time the peace was disturbed was in 1643 when Roundheads and Cavaliers fought in its streets. But a revolution of another kind will take place on Monday. At 8am it will become the first plastic bag-free town in Europe.

But from now on, if you buy olives from Adam in the deli, a steak from Simon the butcher, or a sweet and sour from Phil in the Chinese, they will come wrapped in corn starch paper. Helen in the ironmongers, Sue in the gallery and Sarah in the gift shop are moving to cotton. If tourists nip into the Co-op for ice cream, they will be given a cloth bag. Modbury will be full of biodegradable, organic, fairtrade, unbleached, recycled carrier bags of every description - except plastic.

(...)

"It seems to have really brought people together. The shops have sent all their unused plastic bags to Newcastle where they are being made into plastic chairs, and they have all set up plastic bag amnesty points where people can bring in the hundreds of bags that they keep under the kitchen sink. Now it's just a question of seeing if people accept it. We are all trembling now. To be a pioneer is pretty scary."

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