By Sue Fleming and Juliet Oxborrow

Plastic Free Lewes was pleased to meet in March with a new working party at Lewes Town Council which has been formed to help phase out single-use plastics from the council’s activities. Lewes Town Council has voted unanimously to phase out single-use plastics from its premises and encourage groups and organisations hiring the Town Hall, the All Saints Centre, Malling Community Centre and Pells Pool to do the same.

Half of all the 300 billion tonnes of plastic produced globally is estimated to be used once before being discarded.The biggest contributors towards single-use plastic pollution include disposable water bottles, plastic bags, drinking straws, takeaway coffee cups and plastic food containers.

Working with Plastic Free Lewes, the town council is looking to:

– Send out a leaflet to anyone seeking to hire one of its venues, explaining alternatives to using single-use plastic. – Phase out single-use plastics from all its offices and encourage workers to use reusable water bottles, coffee takeaway cups etc – Provide posters throughout town council premises giving tips on cutting personal and business plastic use – Provide access to taps in the town hall for anyone to refill reusable water bottles.

The town council is also to vote on becoming a strategic partner to Plastic Free Lewes so it can support and promote the group’s initiatives. Town councillors who have joined the single-use plastics working party are Annabel Ashby (Green), Janet Baah (LibDem), John Lamb (LibDem), Susan Murray (Independent Green), Ruth O’Keeffe (Independent), Chelsea Renton (Green), Esther Watts (Green) and Stephen ‘Caitlin’ Wischhusen (Independent).

We are now seeking to meet with Lewes District Council, which has recently made a similar commitment to phase out single-use plastic where possible. We also intend to approach East Sussex County Council to see if it would like to formulate its own plastics policy.

You can learn more about Plastic Free Lewes here or join the Plastic Free Lewes Facebook Group here