A campaign to reduce community use of plastic bags has been launched by the Shire of Dardanup during Keep Australia Beautiful Week – running nationally between August 21 and 27.
The launch of the campaign comes with an invitation for neighbouring local governments to climb aboard and help spread the BYO Bag message.
The Shire has created an eye-catching BYO Bag logo with the tagline ‘let’s be plastic free!’.
The logo will appear on the Shire’s website and social media platforms, accompanied by information designed to raise community awareness about the problem with plastic bags.
Council requested the campaign as part of a resolution at its meeting on July 19 to advise environment minister Stephen Dawson and local government minister David Templeman of its support for a state-wide ban on plastic bags.
Single-use, plastic bags have already been banned in South Australia, Tasmania, Northern Territory and the ACT.
Recent research has shown Australians use more than four billion plastic checkout-style bags per year, which take up to 1,000 years to break down.
Shire of Dardanup president Mick Bennett said plastic bags couldn’t go into yellow top recycling bins and instead needed to be dropped in special bins specifically for soft plastics recycling found at Coles and Woolworths supermarkets.
“These soft plastics are then recycled into products like outdoor furniture, bollards, signage and decking,” he said.
“The Shire of Dardanup has been purchasing these environmentally-friendly, recycled products for the past two years because of their superior resilience to termites, rotting and cracking.”
Mr Bennett said he hoped the new BYO Bag logo would provide a visual cue, reminding residents to bring their own enviro bags when they went shopping, drop off their soft plastics at participating supermarkets for recycling and participate in litter clean-up events.
The Shire of Dardanup is holding a clean-up day at Duncan Loop in Millbridge on Sunday, August 27 between 9am and 11am as part of Keep Australia Beautiful Week.
Participants are encouraged to meet at the southern end of the reserve.
