Plastic Free February: Transition Belper Café At No 28 Takes On “Pointless Plastic”

On Saturday 24 February at 10 am Transition Belper will be holding its monthly Green Exchange.

The theme for February’s Green Exchange at Number 28 will be “Pointless Plastic.”

Transition Belper will have lots of pictures of unnecessary plastic and they aim to start a dialogue about how to make Belper plastic-free.

Some plastic facts:

• Packaging is the largest end use market segment accounting for just over 40% of total plastic usage.
• Annually approximately 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide. More than one million bags are used every minute.
• A plastic bag has an average “working life” of 15 minutes.
• Over the last ten years we have produced more plastic than during the whole of the last century.

Beverage Bottles Alone

• According to the Container Recycling Institute, 100.7 billion plastic beverage bottles were sold in the U.S. in 2014, or 315 bottles per person.
• 57% of those units were plastic water bottles: 57.3 billion sold in 2014. This is up from 3.8 billion plastic water bottles sold in 1996, the earliest year for available data.
• The process of producing bottled water requires around 6 times as much water per bottle as there is in the container.
• 14% of all litter comes from beverage containers. When caps and labels are considered, the number is higher. [Plastic Oceans]

 

There will also be a seed exchange in time for the coming growing season.

In addition there will be tea, coffee and cakes to buy from the café and stalls to find out more about their projects and Transition Belper’s aims and objectives.

Transition Belper’s monthly Café at No 28 is fast becoming a ‘must attend’ social event for many Belper residents who simply want to network and chat over a cuppa and a slice of delicious home-made cake.

There’s also the opportunity to get involved as they are looking for volunteers to help out with the kitchen and café side of the day each month.

Anyone wishing to volunteer can contact them at info@transitionbelper.org