No Excuse for Single Use...
Eyemouth is officially recognised as a Plastic Free Community!
Sea the Change has been working hard to ensure that Eyemouth is the latest town to achieve the Surfers Against Sewage ‘Plastic Free’ status - with many businesses and community organisations pledging to reduce or remove as much single use plastics as possible. In total, 27 local businesses and community organisations removed an astonishing 65 items of single use plastic from their premises and events.
'We have made some dramatic changes since our involvement and encouragement by Sea the Change. These changes have been really welcomed by the community. Our newest change, since Lockdown is we no longer put bows on our bouquets as we are not able to offer recyclable materials. We also only wrap in eco paper, mainly brown paper. Our customers love this!! We explain why and its fantastic to hear their responses. We only offer paper bags. We no longer have plastic bags. We have lots more that we do and we are always looking at new changes we can make. As a business owner, I would like to thank you Alice. You have been an incredible support to us and you have educated us to realise that these small changes really do make a huge difference.'
Jemma, Occasions, Eyemouth
Why do we care?
Not only does plastic take hundreds of years to decompose, there is also a huge risk to marine life. As the latest series of Blue Planet highlighted, plastic making its way into the ocean can be catastrophic for marine life.
It’s not about removing all plastic from our lives. It’s about kicking our addiction to avoidable single-use plastic, and changing the system that produces it. Together, as a community we can BE THE CHANGE...
Plastic Free Schools
This campaign really started with two amazing students who were volunteering with Sea the Change as part of the Duke of Edinburgh Award, Adam Holland and Max McNeil. Adam and Max set themselves a very clear objective - in 3 months help remove 3 single use disposable plastics from Berwickshire High, thus reducing the huge amounts of waste produce by the school on a daily basis. They carried out an audit and began the process of making change - not only did they manage to remove sachet condiments from the canteen, but they re-introduced jugs of water to reduce pupils dependency on buying bottles of water, and they got the school to reinstate the metal cutlery and remove single use plastic knives and forks. The reduction in waste for the school was dramatic, well done!
Community Events
Every year Sea the Change runs two Community Clean Ups at the start and end of the tourist season (March and September) and the support shown by our community has been overwhelming- with over 100 people turning up every time!
Communities making Change
We asked and Eyemouth have delivered! Huge thanks to all the local businesses and community organisations that have made the pledge to removed unnecessary single use plastics from their premises and support the Plastic Free Eyemouth Campaign as we continue to make positive changes together for our community.
Let’s free where we live from single-use, one plastic bottle at a time.