Butcher scuppers town's bid to go plastic bag-free
A SHOPKEEPER has given 65,000 reasons why he is not helping Scotland’s first town to become plastic bagfree.
From today, traders in the Borders town of Selkirk will stop issuing plastic bags to shoppers in an ecofriendly move.
But before the initiative was announced, butcher Gordon Newlands, who runs Halliwells in the town’s Market Place, purchased a fiveyear supply of bags bearing his logo.
He will be one of the few businesses still handing out plastic bags when the scheme gets under way in preparation for the official launch on Friday, when recycled cottonstyle bags will be given away to the town’s 6,000 residents.
He explained: "I support the campaign in principle but there are 65,000 reasons why I cannot go along with it at the moment. That is the amount of plastic bags I currently have in stock and it is going to take about five years to get rid of them."
Campaign organisers from Selkirk Plastic Bag Free are pressing on with their claim of being Scotland’s first town to become plastic bagfree. They are following in the footsteps of Modbury in Devon which became Britain’s first plastic bagfree town last May.
Original source : The Scotsman
