Plastic Ain't My Bag: The Launch

Tug. Tug. 'Excuse me?'
(Double take. Eventually, a glance down). 'Yes little boy'
'I notice that you're carrying a plastic bag.' (Gestures to bag)
'Well yes, how observant, I use it to carry my groceries in.' (Pat on the head)
'I'm not stupid. I'm just small.' (Uncomfortable, shifting British silence.)
'Did you know that it takes a bag 500 years for a plastic bag to decay in landfill, that it wastes the earth's precious natural resources and that at this clip we're likely to have exhausted the UK's landfill reserves by 2012?'
'Erm. No I did not'
'Can I give you one of We Are What We Do's 'Plastic Ain't My Bag' bags instead?' (Gestures to paper bag with pink logo)
'Will it make you go away little boy?'
(Rustle, rustle, swap)
'Consider it done.'

On Friday 4th May We Are What We Do launched our 'Plastic Ain't My Bag' campaign at Stratford Shopping Centre in East London. The centre was awash with stickers, posters, banners and helpers in Plastic Ain't My Bag t-shirts. The young people spoke with supermarket managers over their plastic bag policies, engaged with their local and national politicians and initiated spontaneous 'bag swaps' with confused, but mostly bemused, shoppers.

Dividing themselves up into groups the children and young people interviewed managers at Sainsburys, Morrisons, Mondos, Applejacks and The Theatre Royal. They asked for the manager's views on plastic bags and courted their ideas for reducing their use. In Sainsburys Amit, the manager, pledged his allegiance to the campaign and talked about how he has asked that Sainsburys change their 'scan and pack' policy so that shop assistants can ask first, and bag later, only if it's required. (This has subsequently been agreed by head office.) In Morrisons the children presented the manager with a selection of paintings of We Are What We Do actions to raise awareness and to be displayed by tills at point of sales.

Politically plastics were high on the agenda. The deputy mayor, Christine Bowden, was gamely papperazzi'd putting her Sainsburys shopping into a paper 'Plastic Ain't My Bag' carrier. And a large, assembled group talked to Stephen Timms about his plans to change the world (and specifically whether he had any plans to put a tax on plastic bags.) Elsewhere a group of secondary school students and sixth formers met with Lyn Brown, MP for West Ham, to discuss international policies and how initiatives have worked in other countries. Ms Brown, a proud owner of an exclusive, Anya Hindmarch 'I'm NOT a Plastic Bag' bag talked about how it's proved a talking point and how imperative it is to get people thinking about the issue and the role of grassroots campaigning in putting pressure on government to do the right thing.

Human roadblocks (with a very lax approach to border control) were set up, by the young people, at designated spots to offer shoppers the chance to swap their plastic bag for our paper ones. The voluntary bag amnesty proved a huge success as Tollgate's choir bellowed out their We Are What We Do song and it pealed throughout the centre's tannoy system.

The day's artwork was designed by longstanding friends of the movement, Antidote agency. And the day's vocal ambassadors came from assembled junior and secondary schools in the local, Newham area. Representatives from University of East London, Newham Sixth Form College and LSE also lent their support on the day.

We Are What We Do plans to visit shops in and around Stratford in the coming weeks to distribute 'Plastic Ain't My Bag' toolkits of posters, window stickers and shelf wobblers and to encourage them to become involved in our national Shop Wars leader board. If further retailers would like to get involved please feel free to contact frances.clarke@community-links.org