The media have many stories about how individuals and communities up and down the country are trying to reduce their use of plastic materials because of the huge amount of damage plastic is doing to the planet. Supermarkets are also starting to consider how they can reduce their use of plastics.

In the 1990s a group of surfers in Cornwall got together and formed SAS: Surfers Against Sewage to clean up the beaches. Recently they launched a project called Plastic Free Coastlines, which has been adopted by inland communities as well. They have developed a Plastic Free Community Toolkit to help reduce the use of plastics, especially single use plastics including plastic bottles, cups and bags.

It is amazing how much our daily lives involve plastics! Let’s face it, they are incredibly useful materials; yet we cannot keep using them in harmful ways as we are doing.

The Royston Environmental Group is keen that we do all we can to help reduce the plastic problem and would love to see Royston achieve the ‘`Plastic Free’ status offered by SAS. Letchworth and many other towns nationwide and often much larger than ours, have already achieved Plastic Free status and we hope to make Royston a Plastic Free community by the end of 2021.