Background

Bag for Sleaford’s Future is one element of a three way strategy to improve the town’s retail offer, cut packaging waste and reduce its carbon footprint.

It’s an ambitious project that will start simply with a campaign to dramatically cut the use of plastic bags.

The original news about this spread quickly. In national papers, Sleaford was listed as one of seventy towns that will ban plastic bags. The BBC has featured the project on recent local news programmes.

A Bag for Sleaford’s Future launched on Saturday 3 May with the launch of the first tranche of cotton bags to persuade local shoppers to use fewer plastic ones (Sleaford, a town of just 15,000 people, gets through 2.25m plastic bags a year based on national statistics).

A second edition is due in the Autumn, carrying images by local school children. Meanwhile Sleaford Town Council, Chamber of Commerce, local churches, economic development agencies, SustainNK (the district wide campaign for environmental change), supermarket representatives and the Hub continue to work on the wider strategy.

A Bag for Sleaford’s Future isn’t the only plan for sustainabillity in the NK District. The local authority and partner agencies have a substantial record for reform. NKDC is the top local authority recycler of waste in the country. SustainNK, its campaigning project, seeks to build a district wide consensus about the need for change (more at http://www.n-kesteven.gov.uk). An unusual project is the proposed new Sleaford Power Station, that will burn straw and in turn save 250m tons of CO2 http://www.sleafordrep.co.uk/

The launch

On 1 May we handed out over 2,000 cotton bags (see left). For images click on the graphic below.

Through the following week demand continued until all supplies were exhausted. We are now working on the next stage, a repeat order plus a retailers campaign around the broader theme of Sustainable Sleaford.

A Bag for Sleaford's (Christmas) Future

A competition for Sleaford and district children to design a bag to be seen everywhere around the town in the lead up to Christmas.

The prizes are mountain bikes given by Linconshire Cooperative!

Download the details and entry form

Several thousand bags have been distributed to help drive the campaign to create a sustainable Sleaford. They add to an increasing number of reusable bags supplied by Sainsburys, Tescos and other retailers, and actively used by Sleaford shoppers.