In July, I was invited to give two workshops on living without plastic at the Seed Festival at Hawkwood College, near Stroud. This beautiful, small eco-festival aims to inspire a more intimate and personal connection with the world and our place within it. It featured ‘green’ speakers, movers & shakers, musicians, poets and artists. The invitation coincided nicely with the global plastic-free-July campaign.
In order to gain some practice for the Seed Festival workshops I hooked up with Transition Stroud to organise an evening workshop for anyone interested locally. Expecting a small group, I prepared a slideshow and planned to make toothpaste and deodorant together with whoever came along. To my complete amazement, over 50 people showed up and squeezed into the small venue. We had a fantastic, lively evening with people of all ages asking great questions and scrutinising the various plastic-free household items I had brought with me. The evening was followed by a public meeting in Stroud which resulted in a new action group being formed, to tackle reducing single-use plastic in our area. Four of the participants joined the plastic-free July campaign and have joined the new Stroud action group as core members. At the Seed Festival, I was once again bowled over by interest the workshops generated where, in total, some 80 people or so participated. For one of the workshops we migrated outside, as the allocated room was too small.
I am encouraged by the seemingly high number of people who want to change our reliance on plastic packaging and who want to be proactive. The number of people immediately taking some form of action when we talk about it makes me think that this ‘movement’ is ready to gain momentum and spread more widely. The thought of causing ripples far beyond our community makes me excited about how new habits can take off and become contagious. I couldn’t have thought of a better way to spend a plastic-free July.
Thank you to my friends Katie from Hawkwood College and Erik from Transition Stroud and also to my husband and sons for their support and participation.
Read more about…
- The worldwide plastic-free July campaign: http://www.plasticfreejuly.org/
- Read about the Transition Town movement which started in Totnes and is now a worldwide movement: https://transitionnetwork.org/
- Join the Stroud Action on Plastic facebook group if you are local to Stroud: https://www.facebook.com/groups/170315980177684/requests/
