As a result of successful proposals made made Green councillors in November, which was backed by all parties, Brighton and Hove City Council have now announced that they are adopting a Single Use Plastics policy.
In last year’s proposals, the council was called upon to introduce a range of measures to encourage the end of single use plastics across the city. The council have also been encouraged to work with local businesses leading on plastic reduction, in order to share the best practice on eliminating Single Use Plastics.
At the council’s Policy, Resources and Growth Committee’s meeting last week, it was also proposed that all major events within Brighton and Hove should go plastic free. Green Party councillors outlined that ‘event organisers eliminate single-use plastics as a condition of their event permission’ needs to be added to the Single Use Plastic policy.
The proposal also requested that the council becomes a full signatory to the ‘Plastic Free Pledge’, which was set up by local campaigners. The ‘Plastic Free Pledge’, led by local group Claire Potter Design, has primarily targeted single use plastic straws, which have an average use time of 20 minutes, but take up to 600 years to decompose.
Claire Potter, who founded the ‘Plastic Free Pledge’, has said:“Following the passing of the Motions in November 2017, it is excellent to see the steps that Brighton and Hove City Council have taken to begin the transition towards being single-use plastic free.
“We at Plastic Free Pledge are looking forward to seeing this policy put into practice – and developed to include requirements such as Single Use Plastic free events, which will really reinforce Brighton and Hove’s place as leaders in the fight against single-use plastic.”
Phélim Mac Cafferty, the Green Councillor who proposed the amendment to the policy has also commented: “The energy that local residents have put into beach cleans and petitions to the Council tells us how important the issue of reducing single-use plastics is to our city by the sea.
Greens have been calling on the Labour Council to take decisive action on this issue for over half a year so we are pleased to see progress in the form of this Single Use Plastics Policy. It includes many of our proposals for a plastic free city and Greens have successfully pressed the Council to do more, including requiring event organisers and vendors to avoid single use plastics as a condition of their permission.”
As the only constituency in the UK to have elected a Green MP, it is fantastic to see this move towards reducing our city’s plastic waste. For more information on ‘Plastic Free Pledge’ visit their website.
