Monday 8 October 2012

Break the Bag Habit

As a green and eco-friendly family I do my utmost to recycle everything that can be recycled and support and love companies and campaigns that are eco-friendly and are doing their part to help this beautiful world we live in.

One such campaign I have recently heard about that aims to bring about change that will benefit the environment is the Break The Bag Habit campaign.  The campaign aims to reduce plastic bag litter and waste which has a detrimental effect on our environment.  Without a second thought many people simply throw plastic bags into their rubbish which means plastic bags inevitably end up on landfills and stay there for many, many years to come adding to a very sad, ugly site of rubbish upon rubbish.


One of my all-time favourite companies, Lush Cosmetics are supporting the Break The Bag Habit campaign.  I have loved Lush for many years and enjoyed most of their high quality, amazing products including fizzing bath bombs, chunks of colourful and fragrant soaps and blissful massage bars.  As well as enjoying their products, I have always respected them for their ethical principles and when I heard they were supporting this campaign I was keen to learn more.
 
When I heard about this campaign via Lush I learnt about some startlingly serious facts regarding plastic bag waste.

* Plastic bags are rubbish and in the EU we create more than 800,000 tonnes of plastic bag waste each year
* Use of plastic bags in the UK has gone up this year to over 8 billion single use carrier bags produced
* These plastic bags will litter our environment for over 2,000 years - polluting our seas, our cities, our countryside and killing our wildlife.


In the midst of a big pile of plastic bagged gloom; every cloud - even overfilled clouds of plastic bags - has a silver lining and a ray of hope can be seen.

This enormous amount of plastic bag waste and rubbish is not inevitable, it can be changed.  In Countries where a ban or 5p charge has been introduced single-use plastic bag usage has typically dropped over 95%.  As the plastic bag bans and charges have been successful in other countries, reducing the amount of plastic bag waste and rubbish, the Break the Bag Habit is campaigning for a charge to be introduced in England for single-use plastic bags.

The Break the Bag Habit campaign is asking the Government to implement a 5p charge as was done in Wales.  Following the model introduced in Wales, retailers would be required by law to charge 5p for single-use bags with all profits from the charge being given to local environmental charities.  By charging for single-use plastic bags the amount of waste will be reduced which will be better for the environment and environmental charities will benefit too which is a fantastic bonus to the solution for reducing plastic bag wastage.

Mixing their ethical values and fun loving attitude Lush have created 2 imaginatively fun competitions to help promote and raise awareness of the Break The Bag Habit campaign.  Lush’s creative competitions not only promote this campaign but it also teaches about the downside of plastic bags in a fun, imaginative way.

“Win lush products and condemn plastic bags to the art history books” by getting creative with Lush’s Bury the Bag Monster drawing challenge.  Get creative and create a scary, gorgeous or interesting picture of a Bag Monster.

 To enter just take a photo of your monster and upload it to Instagram or post on twitter using #burythebagmonster.  This creatively fun competition ends at 00.00 on Thursday 11th October.  (Terms and Conditions).

Winners of this monster competition will have their design printed on a canvas bag filled with Lush goodies.

If the competition has ended why not still get creative with your children and make a bag monster.  Spark up your imaginations and have some good old fashioned creative fun as a family.

The Bag Adventure is a film video competition challenge.  Lush want you to get the insight of your children about how “every year in the EU, we use over 800,000 tonnes of single-use plastic bags.  These bags continue to blight our environment, creating littler on our beaches, harming our wildlife and occupying landfills, taking thousands of years to decompose”.

The challenge set by Lush as part of their support of the Break the Bag Habit campaign is to ask your child/children “What happens to plastic bags when Mummy and Daddy throw them away?”  As children have vivid and wonderful imaginations Lush want to hear where they think plastic bags go when they are thrown away.

To enter just record and upload a video to YouTube or Vimeo of a child in your life answering the question.  When uploading the video use #bagadventures  (Terms and Conditions).

As a thank you for supporting the Break the Bag Habit campaign Lush are giving the first 50 video uploaders a lovely Lush gift.

More information about Lush's part of the Break the Bag Habit campaign.


More information about Lush Cosmetics.


I think Lush’s creative competitions are brilliant and lots of fun for imaginative little minds.  Little man (with mummy’s help) made a little drawing of his own Bag Monster.


I think the Break the Bag Habit is an amazing campaign and as someone who is eco-friendly I fully support campaigns such as this.  As you may know I live in Wales, therefore I live where single-use plastic bags are charged for and from witnessing other people when shopping I feel there has been huge improvement on not using single-use plastic bags.  Well before the charge came into effect I used a ‘bag for life’ and even on the odd occasion that I had a single-use bag I would still put into the cupboard (hence why I had some bags available to make a monster) to use again or place in my recycling bin.  Now I am so used to not using single-use plastic bags that when we recently went away, across the border to England both Lee and I found it very weird not to be asked do you need a bag but to just be given them straight away whether we wanted them or not.  I think a change in England to one such as what we have here in Wales would be very beneficial to reducing plastic bag waste which in turn is good for our environment and the future of our children.

Even if you don’t want to take part in the Lush competitions or have missed the closing date why not get creative anyway and most of all spread the word about this campaign and help make a change for the sake of our beautiful environment and wildlife.

*  Disclosure: I didn’t receive any payment for this post. I am simply sharing this with you, because I fully support this campaign and wanted to do my little bit and share about Break the Bag Habit *

1 comment:

  1. I am guilty of not reusing my bags. I now have so many they are filling half a kitchen cupboard. I always forget to take them with me when I go shopping. I even forget to use the ones I bought specifically to be reused. Maybe if I scrunched some up and put them in a handbag pocket or put some by the front door I would remember.

    ReplyDelete