Ventbag

Ventbag is the project name for Ventnor becoming the first town on the Island to be Plastic Carrier Bag Free. A local resident put the idea forward to Mark Compton-Hall from Ventnor 2007 wanting our town to follow the example of Modbury in Devon. Mark put a poll on the Ventnor Blog Forum to see what people thought of the idea and most were very much in favour. A meeting of interested parties took place on the 4th December and initial plans were made for Ventnor becoming Plastic Carrier Free by September 2008.

At the moment we are consulting with the local shops to find out the size and type of plastic bags that they use at present so that economically viable alternatives can be found. So shoppers will not need to worry, you will still be able to get a bag for your shopping but it will not be made of plastic. One eco-friendly bag will be delivered free to every home in Ventnor with an information sheet asking them to reuse it and other non-plastic bags they may have. We are about to ask Ventnor Middle school children to put forward designs for Ventnor’s own fabric shopping bag – The Ventbag. These will be available for sale and I am sure they will be popular with residents and tourists alike, this will go ahead once we have funding for the manufacture of the Ventbag.

There is also another active bag project in the town Make a Bag – Make a Change, making shopping bags from recycled fabric which are always given away free to people to discourage the use of plastic bags, paving the way towards Ventnor becoming Plastic Carrier Bag Free . Angie Pullin a member of the Ventnor Permaculture Group decided to start making these bags with the group and anyone else who was interested after seeing the idea on the Morsbags website.

There are hundreds of towns who have ‘pods’ who make these bags all over the UK and the rest of world, there is already a successful group in Bembridge who have made and given away over 200 bags. We are registered as Ventnor Bags if you would like to join our pod and start making bags.

In early January there will be a couple of community make a bag sessions, if you can sew in a straight line you can make a bag, come and join us or work on you own or within an existing group or club.

If you can’t sew you can still get involved by cutting out bags, pressing bags or making the tea to keep the baggers going, it is fun and you can make new friends.

If you have any cotton fabric you no longer need curtains, duvet covers, remnants, sewing thread etc that you would like to donate the project please drop it off at
The Ventnorian, Spring Hill, Ventnor, where you can also pick up instructions for making a bag but if you are reading this please get the instructions from Morsbags rather than getting a paper copy.

Please feel free to use or copy our ideas – the less plastic bags around the better!

A few facts about plastic bags:

A person uses a plastic carrier bag on average for only 12 minutes.

A plastic bag can take between 500 to 1000 years to break down in the environment.

In the UK at least 200 million plastic bags end up as litter on our beaches, streets and parks ever year.

When a plastic bag enters the ocean it becomes a harmful piece of litter. Many marine animals mistake plastic bags for food and swallow them, with painful and often fatal consequences.