LIFE IN A PLASTIC-FREE VILLAGE
“INITIALLY, I found it a bit frightening. I’m a new business owner, and I was sceptical about the whole thing.”
A Welsh village’s quest to become the first community in the country to be classed as plastic-free was not for everyone, at least to start with.
After all, the term “plastic-free” can be daunting in itself; businesses need plastic to survive. We use it every day and it’s nearly impossible to function without it.
That’s the point made by Gethin James, a cafe owner in Aberporth, the village that has just been officially recognised as being a plastic-free community.
“The title ‘plastic-free was a little bit frightening,” says Mr James, as we look out onto the immaculate Aberporth sand from his beach-side cafe.
“First of all, our beach here is spotless. I didn’t want Aberporth to be seen as having a huge litter problem.
“Secondly, as someone whose business is 25 to 30% takeaway coffee cups, my initial thought was ‘what am I supposed to do?’”
This reluctance is understandable when one considers the harsh reality of operating a business in a small seaside community.
Business might boom come the summer months, but even a mild winter can create a frosty ambience if there’s nobody coming through the door.
It is late January and there is nobody here.
Asking small business owners who have to cut their cloth with precision to fork out more for non-plastic forks is a difficult task.
“I was sceptical,” Mr James admits. “But, once the campaign was explained to me, it made perfect sense.”
That campaign was the brainchild of local filmmaker Gail Tudor. She went on a boat trip around the UK last summer and came back with a burning intention to make a difference, and a belief that something could, and had to be done, even in a small community like Aberporth.
What Gail discovered was something far more dangerous than simple littering, something that could have a direct effect not just on wildlife and the environment, but on human health.
“Microplastics is the real problem,” she said. “They collect toxins that end up in fish and then end up in us, in our food chain.”
Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic that have been degraded from larger plastic debris.
One particular type – microbeads – are a more prevalent concern as they live in a number of everyday products and are small enough to pass through water filtration systems, meaning they eventually make a home for themselves in our seas.
A UK-wide ban on the manufacture of microbeads came into force earlier thias month, but ae ban on selling them won’t come in until July.
According to Surfers Against Sewage, the conservation charity that has granted Aberporth its “plasticfree” status, one plastic bottle can last for up to 450 years in the marine environment, getting smaller and smaller but never truly disappearing.
Every day around eight million pieces of plastic pollution gets into our oceans, and it’s a growing problem. In 1950, the world produced 1.5 million tonnes of plastic. Today, it’s more than 320 million, and it makes up between 60 and 90% of all marine debris.
Furthermore, 100,000 mammals and turtles and one million sea birds are killed by marine plastic every year.
When broken down, it begins to become clear why that chip tray that blew off your seaside bench, or why that innocent-looking bottle top resting on the sand is such a problem.
Upon her return to Aberporth, Gail set about approaching local businesses to change their ways, to make a stand and show the way for the rest of the village, the county, the country.
There must be something in the coastal air in west Wales.
First, people in New Quay took a stand against the potential removal of their all-weather lifeboat, then residents in St Davids fought back against a hotel giant, and now the people of Aberporth are waging a battle against plastic, and, more pertinently, waging a war against a way of life that could have serious implications for generations to come.
“We’re a feisty bunch in west Wales,” says Gilly Llewelyn, one of those involved in the fight.
Gail adds: “I wanted to get people interested. We set up a steering committee and a Facebook page and approached local businesses. In order to be classed as a ‘plastic-free community’ we had to get three businesses to agree to give up three single-use plastic items.
“People were quite keen to get on board – a lot of people turned up to our initial meeting and our MP Ben Lake came down to see us and offered his support.”
One gets the sense that although people’s intentions were good, the campaign needed something, perhaps an air of urgency or a semblance of panic. In December, that came. When the final episode of Blue Planet II aired on the BBC in December, it depicted in detail the devastating effect that plastics can have.
Creatures were unknowingly feeding plastic to their young. Viewers
Aberporth has made headlines across the world for its own kind of plastic surgery. Robert Harries meets the people behind the drive to become Wales’ first plastic-free community...
were horrified, and the programme’s presenter, Sir David Attenborough, closed the show by saying: “The future of all life now depends on us.”
It had an effect across the country, including in Aberporth.
“That programme really hit home with people,” said Gethin James. “I didn’t know about microbeads and the sheer volume of plastic in the ocean. Once I saw this and the plastic-free group explained the reasoning behind the campaign, that was enough for me to get involved.”
Gethin, a former county councillor who opened the Cwtch Glanmordy cafe in 2015, has since pledged to use wooden cutlery instead of plastic cutlery, paper straws instead of plastic straws, and he will keep his sauce in glass bottles rather than hand out plastic sachets to his customers.
The biggest change, however, is with regards to his biggest seller – coffee.
“Coffee cups aren’t recyclable – they have a plastic lining and the lids are plastic,” he said. “But I’ve now found this product made with a cornstarch lining which is compostable – this is where I can make the bigest impact.
“The problem is, what I currently use costs around 9p per unit; the new material would cost up to 25p per unit, so we need to find ways to make it more cost effective.
“I’d like to one day see the manufacturers all stop and change their products to fall in line with what we’re trying to do. There should be a levy on plastic products, so the cost is met from there, not at the other end. This would cause manufacturers to change their whole outlook.”
In the village pub, expensive decisions have also been made.
Paper straws are being used now instead of plastic ones, despite costing ten times more.
The man who made that decision has no doubts whatsoever that it’s the correct one; the short-term cost to the pub’s balance sheet paling in significance to the long-term cost to the environment.
“When Gail started this, I was all over it,” says Oliver Box, whose parents own The Ship Inn. “When I decided to get involved, I didn’t know anything about the extra cost, but it hasn’t put me off. I want to do the right thing. We are, as a society, people that throw things away.
“I tell my kids not to throw things away. I’ve grown up by the beach and you see chip wrappers and litter everywhere, but it isn’t a littering problem; people put things in bins, but they blow out of the bins.
“I’ve seen plastic sachets on the beach and once they’re on the sand they don’t go anywhere, until they end up in the sea. What has happened here is amazing. I’ve seen cars pull in to the car park opposite the pub, and people get out and clean up the beach.”
So what is caused this change in behaviour? Why are people in a village with a population of fewer than 2,000 people trying to make a difference?
“It’s a Welsh thing,” added Oliver. “People are proud of what they get to see, but I believe you just need people to make it happen, and it has in Aberporth.
“It’s made a difference already. I’ve found someone who provides compostable straws that you can put into your food waste, so manufacturers are obviously listening.”
London House Stores, which acts as the town’s nucleus, was one of the first and most passionate proponents of the campaign.
It’s the very definition of a local shop. You can’t speak to the owner, Mike Allen, for more than 90 seconds without someone coming in to purchase an everyday item.
All of whom, naturally, are greeted by Mike on first-name terms. This relationship that Mike has built up with his customers since taking over the shop eight years ago has not suffered since he started to sell milk in glass bottles, loose leaf tea, rice in a paper box as opposed to plastic packets, bread in a wax wrapper, wooden clothes pegs, and bamboo toothbrushes.
“We’re not forcing people to join the plastic-free revolution,” says Mike. “We’re giving people a choice. People can chose to be a part of it rather than feeling forced into it.
“The first thing I did was ask the milkman if we could have our milk in glass bottles and he said we could.
“We only have them in pints, but it’s a start, and what we’re finding is that people are buying more milk.
“Whether that’s a nostalgic thing, I don’t know, but other places are getting involved now, partly because of the environment and partly because it’s good for sales. We’re ordering more milk now and it’s all shifting.”
But there must be people in Aberporth who are against the campaign?
“There’s nobody who’s actively against it,” says Mike. “There’s been some cynicism about being labelled ‘plastic-free’ because it’s impossible to be totally plastic-free, but we’re trying. We’re trying to reduce the amount of plastic we use and to raise awareness.
“If we get one person to buy two pints of milk a week in glass bottles, that’s two bits of plastic not going to waste, not ending up in the ocean.
“It doesn’t sound like a lot if one person does it, but if it’s the whole of Aberporth, and then the whole of Ceredigion, that’s a lot of plastic. We need to deal with our own waste, and we need to be responsible for our own waste. The less we produce, the less there is to deal with.”
Prime Minister Theresa May has revealed her own vision of how to tackle plastic waste, outlined in an ambitious 25-year plan announced earlier this year which will, among other things, introduce charges on single-use plastic items and provide funds for plastics innovation.
She admitted that “in years to come, I think people will be shocked at how today we allow so much plastic to be produced needlessly.
“We must reduce the demand for plastic, reduce the number of plastics in circulation and improve our recycling rates.”
The recycling rate in Wales is actually a lot better than it is in England, with a 64% target set by the Welsh Government to be achieved by 2020 already having been met. In statistics released last year, Wales was ahead of the rest of the UK, second in Europe and third in the world.
This proactive approach which has been embraced by local authorities up and down Wales means we, as a nation, can lead the way when it comes to the reduction in single-use plastic, and politicians are keen to make sure that happens.
Mid and West Wales Assembly Member Simon Thomas is proud that a community in his home county has achieved what it has. But, he says, it is just the beginning.
He is now calling on the Welsh Government to introduce a levy on single-use plastics, something that he believes will give more people in Wales the opportunity, and the incentive, to make a difference.
“I’m very pleased that the first Welsh community to get this status is in Ceredigion,” said Mr Thomas.
“I’ve been really struck by the change in public attitudes. I think people have realised the scale of the pollution problem. There was interest before, but the Blue Planet programme came along and interest soared. The 25-year plan is an England-only plan, and recycling in Wales is generally much better, and I’m currently lobbying for a levy to be introduced on single-use plastics, which would hopefully make alternatives more attractive to people.”
The powers that be in Cardiff Bay say a “plastic-tax” is a real possibility, and that the idea could be moved forward later this month.
“We recognise the strong support for a disposable plastic tax,” a Welsh Government spokeswoman said.
“It is one of the four shortlisted new tax ideas, which we are considering as part of the process to test the Wales Act 2014 powers.
“We have been exploring all four proposals over the last six months and the Finance Secretary will announce next month which tax idea he intends to take forward to the UK Government to test the Act.”
Before leaving Aberporth, a stroll on the beach reveals the regard in which this village is held by the people who work and live in it.
There are no wrappers here, no bottle tops, no plastic cutlery, no plastic bags.
What lies beyond and below the waves, however is out of sight. This community is making sure it’s not out of mind.