"Eco-chic is in The Bag"

In the UK alone, each year, the average individual uses 167 non bio-degradable plastic carrier bags, amounting to an astounding 13 billion plastic bags, most of which are used just the once before disposal (WRAP, 2005).

Listening to Croydon’s consumers and working with our local retailers, Croydon Council proudly launched an eco-competition in June 2008 to raise awareness of the unnecessary, extensive use of the plastic bag.

Croydon Council and Envibe joined forces with The Green Guardian, The Whitgift Shopping Centre and Centrale to create a competition open to everyone in the community, calling upon local talent wanting to make a stand whilst creatively sending out the critical environmental message – reuse your bag to reduce waste to landfill and your carbon footprint. And with well over 120 entries received, the competition captured the hearts and minds of our community.

The winning designs include an assembly of butterflies by Koreen Sinclair, an environmental statement “I’m better than a plastic bag!” by Chloe McMahon and shout out loud “Eco Bags Rule!” as designed by Denny Gholami.

Working with Envibe gold award winning green business, First Impressions Last Longer, these bags will soon be a reality, ensuring that these bags have been produced in the most environmentally friendly way.  Each reusable bag is 100% fair trade cotton, produced in Europe from Fairtrade organic, soil associated unbleached cotton originally from India. The printing is done in the UK using vegetable oil based inks.

Here in Croydon, we are saying “no” to plastic and “yes” to re-use and we want you to join our Eco-chic movement.

For your chance to grab a bag for free, support Surrey Street Market traders who will be giving 300 bags away for free with produce purchases on Saturday 6^th June – but hurry when they’re gone, they’re gone!

The bags will then officially go on sale from Monday 8^th June. Proceeds from every bag purchased will benefit environmental organisations within our local community. 

They can be purchased for £2.50 from the following locations:

Keep an eye out for the following stall holders selling the bags at various events:

• Fair Enough and Croydon Fairtrade Network
• Croydon Real Nappy Network
• Croydon Friends of the Earth
• Croydon Guyana Link
• This campaign has supported up and coming talent, a local green business, eco organisations whilst demonstrating Croydon’s commitment to tackling climate change – a wonderful ending to this tale!

Testimonies

“We have lived in Croydon for 12 years and are very proud of Denny’s achievement. We hope that it will help residents of Croydon to live a greener life improving the environment. We have always encouraged our children to care about the environment, waste less, recycle and reuse more. It is always a good thing to see that these ideas at home are supported by the actions of authorities, especially local authorities.”

Mr Gholami, on behalf of Denny, Winner Eco Bag Design

“The Green Guardian decided to support the Eco Bags competition as a way of creatively engaging members of the Croydon community to recognise the high impact that plastic bags have on our environment and the high level of waste that they create. The competition not only showed us that there is huge support for changing habits when it comes to using plastic bags but also that there are a number of extremely creative people in Croydon and to see that the winning designs are now to become reality, is fantastic news for the borough.”

Liz Waters, Green Guardian.

“At first Impressions we were delighted to be part of the Eco Bag project which we consider to be an example of outstanding practice in Sustainable Procurement.  After the designs were unveiled at the eco expo we were commissioned to manage the procurement process.  The bags themselves were made in India in a fairtrade trade accredited factory that offsets its emissions and distribution impacts with local forestry and agricultural projects.  The workforce that made them are all aged over the age of 18 and the factory actively supports education an education policy that offers the indigenous dalit community a chance of an escape from the abject poverty that the much of the the third worlds textile industry thrives on.  The tags that accompany are printed in the local area on recycled card that is unbleached, recycled and recyclable in a press that is a recognised leader in environmental printing that has minimal chemical impact, sets aside ground for nature and offsets its emissions.  The labels are made in the UK using recycled material.  Addition design work was undertaken by First Impressions in Croydon in a site that offset its emissions by 300% in the last fiscal year and donates 1% of sales turnover to People and Planet organisations that support the same Dalit communities in India that made the bag.”

Bruce Halai-Carter, Environment Director, First Impressions Last Longer