A DRIVE to eliminate ‘single-use’ plastic products by the tail end of this year has been given the thumbs up by all of Worcester’s three main political parties.
Conservatives and Labour city councillors overwhelmingly endorsed a call from Worcester Green Party councillors for the council to phase out the use of such products at a meeting last month.
Coun Neil Laurenson led the call for single use plastic products such as drinking straws, bottles, cups and cutlery to no longer be used by the city council.
He quoted figures from campaign group Less Plastic which revealed 320 million tonnes of plastic is being produced across the globe with a staggering 40 per cent for single use purposes.
“Single use plastics is one of the biggest environmental dangers we are facing,” he told the meeting.
“The knock-on benefits from adopting sustainable practices include cost savings, efficiency improvements and enhanced brand reputation. Surely that would be a great thing for this council and this city?”
“This will work well with other plans that the council has, such as to install drinking water fountains in the city centre and will see us follow in the footsteps of other councils across the UK.
“Single-use plastic is the worst kind of plastic. It doesn’t make sense for finite resources to be mined, manufactured and shipped to be used for a few minutes before becoming unwanted waste that is a burden to dispose of and ends up littering our natural spaces,” he added.
Fellow Green member Coun Louise Griffiths said: “There has been a considerable awareness of the dangers of single use plastics in the last 12 months and backing this motion will put Worcester at the forefront of the fight and allow the city to take a lead this field.”
The council also agreed to encourage local businesses and other local public agencies to stop using single use plastic products and accepted an amendment from former Mayor of Worcester Coun Roger Knight to remove the October deadline proposed by the Greens in favour of a continued effort to cut out the plastic use at the Guildhall.
