Plastic Bag Free Campaign

On 1 April, 2005, the Foot Street shopping strip in Frankston South became the first in Melbourne's southeast to stop supplying plastic bags to their customers. Based on each shop's average weekly plastic bag usage, this means they will save about 267,000 bags a year.

Frankston City Council supplied the traders with nearly 5000 reusable bags with the Environmentally Friendly Foot Street slogan to give to customers instead of plastic bags. Since then the Plastic Bag Free campaign has been rolled out at Norman Avenue, Seaford, and The Pines.

 

Plastic Bags are a major problem for our environment. Victorianscurrently use around 1.1 billion plastic bags a year. Although each bag may be used only a few minutes they will take up to 1000 years to break down. Each year in Victoria approximately 10 million plastic bags end up as litter that can enter waterways, block drains and threaten marine life - plastic bags kill at least 100,000 birds, whales, seals and turtles every year. After an animal is killed by plastic bags its body decomposes and the plastic is released back into the environment where it can kill again.