Half a million bags go a long way to carry green solution
29/07/2008

News from http://www.ecosac.net

Enough ‘green’ carrier bags to carpet the M40 from Midlands to London have been bought by The Royal Horticultural Society.

The Society has paved the way and purchased half a million compostable carrier bags from a small family-owned company, Ecosac in Shropshire, as garden experts prepare for the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show (July 8 – 13).

In contrast to the damage to wildlife and the environment caused by a similar number of plastic bags, the compostable carrier bags will do no harm – and will also become the green option to carriers made from oil, if Gordon Brown’s ‘bag tax’ is endorsed.

To give an idea of the scale of the deal, the half-metre bags would stretch, side-by-side, from Ecosac’s base at Tern Hill, Shropshire, most of the way to the world-famous Royal Horticultural Society gardens in Wisley.

The RHS responded to the challenge of eliminating plastic bags by replacing them at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show with Ecosac’s compostable carriers.

The sustainable solution will drive home the Society’s green message, and significantly reduce the damage from plastic bags.  Ecosac is also supplying Clients from the Coop to the Soil Association, The National Trust, Organic Farmers and Growers, WWF and for the Welsh Assembly Government’s ‘Healthy Eating’ programme.

The bags are made with GM-free non-food grade cornstarch grown on redundant land. They were used at the Chelsea Flower Show and BBC Gardeners’ World in Birmingham, and the RHS were so pleased with them they have extended this eco-friendly initiative to other Shows.

Frazer Walker, Ecosac Director, said: “This is a milestone for environmentally friendly packaging in the UK. We are a small company, which for six years has been supplying compostable products and with concerns about plastic bag pollution being high on the public agenda, Ecosacs are attracting growing interest, especially from towns which are determined to go plastic bag free and highlighted in the Daily Mail’s ‘Banish the Bags’ campaign in February of this year”.

The carriers are also bearing the ‘green conscious’ message for Clients from organic food suppliers, to large garden centres.

Ecosac already supplies its carriers to the RHS Shops in Surrey and Yorkshire, where they are proving a great hit with the public.  This latest development further shows the Society’s commitment to reduction of waste and recycling.

Ecosac Ltd

www.ecosac.net   

Ecosac Ltd is the sole supplier to the UK and Ireland of fully compostable Ecosac® bags, sacks and carrier bags made with patented Mater-Bi ®       GM-free industrial grade cornstarch not taken from the food chain and grown on set-aside land within the EU.

What are the problems with ‘traditional’ plastic bags?

They:

• are made from fossil fuel (oil) which is a finite resource
• clog up landfill sites and take centuries / millennia to break down
• are subject to charges and taxes for landfilling
• litter our roadsides and hedgerows
• cause serious problems to animal and marine life through choking, entanglement and poisoning through heavy metal content

How do Ecosacs differ?

They are fully compostable and are designed to avoid disposal through landfilling

What does ‘fully compostable’ mean?

They break down in a composting environment by natural means into simple elements, namely carbon, oxygen and hydrogen, leaving no contaminants.

With what are Ecosacs made?

A patented GM-free cornstarch biopolymer which is industrial grade, not taken from the food chain and is grown on redundant set-aside land.

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