After moaning that I hadn’t heard much from the Plastic Bag Free Brighton campaign in my last post, I was chuffed to get an email today with their latest news.

They are inviting everyone (well, it’s first come, first seated!) to a a free screening of ‘message in the waves’ at Brighton’s lovely arthouse cinema, the Duke of York’s Picturehouse.

The film, by the BBC Natural History Unit, takes a look at some of the environmental challenges facing the people and wildlife of the Hawaiian Islands and shows the impact our day-to-day activities have on ocean systems and wildlife.

Excitingly, this is the film that Rebecca Hosking helped to make which inspired her to make her home town of Modbury in Devon a plastic-bag free town. The Brighton campaign is hoping it will inspire us to help make Brighton & Hove the first plastic-bag free city!

And that’s not all… after ‘Message in the Waves’ there will be:

• two short films made by children at Balfour Juniors School, ‘The exciting adventures of the plastic bag’ and ‘Revenge of the rubbish’
• a talk by artist Lou McCurdy who spent a year collecting plastic from a Brighton beach to create the installation ‘More Plastic than Plankton’
• a short discussion with guest speakers (tba) and a Q&A session
• giveaways for all attending courtesy of their sponsors

The event is free to attend and will work on a first come, first seated basis. Donations will be collected for the Duke of York’s roof renovation fund, by way of thanks for their generosity in hosting the event at no cost.

If you’re in Brighton on Sunday 3 Feb, come along! 1.30pm Duke Of York’s Picturehouse, Preston Circus, Brighton BN1 4NA

Katie
ethicalweddings.com

Gosh…China has taxed plastic bags !!! I have just read that from June of this year shops in China will not be giving away plastic bags. If shoppers need a bag they will have to buy one. I think this is fantastic news….lets hope it wont be long before other countries follow suit.

I’m feeling a very guilty - and cold - green girl at the moment.

Guilty for not writing on this lovely blog for soooo long!

And cold because our central heating has broken… brrrr!

The upside of this, however, is that we will have a heating system that is over 90% efficient by the time our plumbers have finished, rather than one which was 40-50% efficient and about 50 years old. Which is worth shivering for I’m sure!

On the guilty front, I hope I will be forgiven to some extent as I can promise you I have not been spending the time not writing on GGG lazing on the sofa (well, maybe if the heating was working I would have been…!).

Indeed, no, I have been working away on our all new and improved Ethical Weddings website along with my fellow GGG and ethical web designer extraordinaire, Vicky of Make Hay.

Take a look at the fruits of our labour at www.ethicalweddings.com and enjoy a good explore of the site.

If you’re an ethical bride or green groom, have ethical wedding related expertise or want to get involved in any way at all in turning the wedding industry green, get in touch, we’d love to hear from you!

But to get to the subject of my post today, I thought it was time to share the news that Brighton is - supposed to be - going plastic bag free.

I’m sharing this news with you in the hope that some Brightonians or fellow Sussexians (if there is such a word!) at any rate, will hear me as although I stumbled across the campaign for the removal of the Brighton plastic bag on the internet (and immediately contacted the group to let them know they had my full support!), sadly I see very little evidence that this has filtered down into the shops.

I am still offered a plastic bag nearly everywhere I go in Brighton, and I have seen no signs or flyers encouraging shoppers or shop keepers to “just say no”.

This campaign needs our support. If you are for a plastic free Brighton, check out plasticbagfreebrighton.co.uk and get in touch with Chloë to let them know we want this to work and will help in any way we can.

If Modbury can do it, why can’t we?

Take care (and just say no!)

Katie
Ethical Weddings