Kent businesses to get on board with reducing single-use plastic in Whitstable

9th April 2019 Alice Beckett 1128 Views bacteria, canterbury, enzyme, green party, plastic, whitstable

Independent businesses are working with the Green Party to maintain Whitstable’s plastic-free status, it was recently announced.

Green Party member Nicole David stated that Whitstable are taking action to reduce the amount of single use plastic across the town – by liaising with local businesses.

“We had to have 12 local businesses commit to getting rid of three items of single-use plastic,” she said.

Our lead candidate, Alex Stevens, at the Whitstable beach clean this foggy morning. We need recycling bins and a deposit scheme for plastic cups at the beach #Greens4Gorrell pic.twitter.com/x80b9SsS2M

— Whitstable Greens (@WhitGreens) February 24, 2019

“We drew up a questionnaire and volunteers went around to around 50 businesses and asked them about their single-use plastics and if they were interested, made suggestions of alternatives.”

The council have furthered efforts to reduce plastic by installing water fountains across Whitstable and Canterbury to encourage people to use refillable bottles instead of plastic.

Nicole added that cafés are also taking extra measures to cut down the amount of waste congregating.

“Cafes would like to start a deposit scheme, where people take their reusable cup and then they can return it to any café in Whitstable and get their money back.”

“We’ve seen our local businesses in Whitstable becoming keen to be plastic free as they know that’s what the consumer wants.”

Beach cleans are one of many solutions to the expanding problem, as well as a bacterium that has been discovered to eat away at plastic, which could possibly become more mainstream in years to come.

Marine Biologist, Jack Mills added: “One solution has been found at the University of Plymouth which is an enzyme within a bacterium which allows the bacteria to digest the plastic.”

The Green Party work alongside Plastic Free Whitstable and Surfers Against Sewage to ensure single-use plastic is reduced hugely across the town, to avoid it ending up in the sea.