Plastic free Ferndown gathers momentum

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Plastic Free Ferndown is working hard towards meeting the criteria laid down by the charity Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) to achieve plastic free status for the town and needs Ferndown businesses and residents to help.

On 18 June, Ferndown Town Council’s Environment Committee voted unanimously to support Plastic Free Ferndown and this will now be put before Full Council on 23 July.

SAS recently won The Charity Awards 2018 in the category Environment and Conservation, a huge accolade for a charity that initially aimed to establish 125 plastic free communities by 2020. In the first six months, over 200 communities signed up – seven of which have already reached plastic free status.

Plastic Free Ferndown would like to be in the top 20 if possible, and might be able to achieve this with everyone’s support.

SAS recently rebranded the campaign, which is now called Plastic Free Communities (previously Plastic Free Coastlines), allowing them to reach and educate more people on the issues of marine litter.

Plastic Free Ferndown is helping to get the message out. It now has a steering group, which met for the first time on 15 June. Committee members are Janine, Ben and Louis Pulford, Stuart Fleetham, Tony Brown, Mike Parkes and Harry Worth. “We aim to do an official launch soon with an event that everyone can attend,” said Janine, who is also a community leader for Plastic Free Ferndown.

“It is vital that we hear from local businesses who are doing something positive to reduce their use of single-use plastic items,” said Janine. “Also, if anyone wants to be involved with the launch, please get in touch through our Facebook page.

“This month, Colten Care have told us that it has become the first major provider in the UK’s private care home sector to begin a group-wide reduction of single-use plastic.”

They have three care homes in Ferndown: Amberwood House, Brook View and Fernhill, so their ‘Caring, without plastic’ campaign, is a huge achievement for Ferndown itself, as well as for Colten Care in general.

The move is significant, given the sector’s traditionally high use of plastic in clinical services, person-centred care and infection control.

“But we are going even further and targeting plastic consumption in everything we do,” said Tim Wookey, Colten Care’s director of marketing and companionship.

“That means all our supplier relationships for the materials and packaging involved in catering, gardening, waste handling, laundry services, repairs and maintenance, and administration. This is an across-the-board, oneteam commitment to get rid of all unnecessary plastic.”

After successfully trialling the cutting out of plastic bags used for removing rubbish and waste at their Sherborne care home, the same approach is being rolled out for the 1,000 bedrooms across Colten’s 20 homes, offering the potential to save 365,000 bags a year from landfill.

Colten Care has also replaced all single-use plastic straws with ones that are biodegradable. This will remove around 480,000 pieces of plastic a year.

Other initiatives include replacing disposable plastic water cups by water coolers with recyclable ones, changing the coffee supply packaging in foyer coffee machines to a nonplastic alternative, and laundry staff replacing disposable latex gloves with washable, re-usable ones.

Tim Wookey said, “Our residents have exactly the same environmental concerns as their families, our staff and suppliers, and everyone else. The truth is that more and more people are becoming aware of the terrible global problems created by the rapidly increasing consumption of plastic. We feel that now is the time to make radical changes within our business to be part of a solution that improves the communities in which we operate. We want all our suppliers to commit to supporting us. It’s all about leading the way and making a positive difference.”

They are not the only business in Ferndown championing the plastic-free cause.

Ferndown Pharmacy’s buyer, Sharon Pharoah, has eliminated the use of plastic bags for prescriptions and substituted them with paper bags. “Where we need to use a plastic one for certain items, we use a biodegradable one,” said Sharon who made the conscious decision to do this for the environment.

Luke Armstrong at the Flying Teapot has cut out plastic straws and replaced them with paper ones. He also serves takeaways in paper bags. And mags4dorset has recently ceased receiving regular deliveries of two small parcels a month because they were wrapped extensively in plastic tape.

Have you got a success story you would like to share with Plastic Free Ferndown? Or, after reading this, will you be reducing your use of single-use plastic? If so, please contact Janine Pulford, so that your contribution can be included in the campaign to help make Ferndown a better place in which to live.

And don’t forget to join the Plastic Free Ferndown Facebook page.