Nature Baby joins a group of passionate locals and businesses are trying to move Grey Lynn and the West Lynn Village towards being plastic bag free, starting this Sunday 1st of July.

90% of West Lynn is single-use plastic bag free already, with the wider Grey Lynn at around 20%. We are confident West Lynn Village can become the first plastic bag free suburb in New Zealand, showing other communities that we don’t need to rely on plastic bag use and that there are easy and environmentally-sound practices that can be embraced by all. We are not a corporation that is able to have full control over others’ practices, but a mixed community of like-minded businesses that want to see changes for the better across society, and we want to be an example for others to follow to show it can be done” says Jacob Faull, Nature Baby founder and the co-chair Grey Lynn Business Association.

“New Zealanders use around 1.6 billion single-use plastic bags every year, which are used for an average of 20 minutes each, but lasting for hundreds of years. They end up in landfills, as litter, or even worse – in our oceans”, says Brigitte Sisteg of Grey Lynn Waste Away, a volunteer organization who has been working on this cause.  There has been a growing awareness of the impact this has on our sea life; they are choking marine animals, and as they break down, entering our food chain when fish swallow them and the micro particles that are now prevalent in our waters. The presence of micro-plastic in our food chain and water supplies could potentially increase direct exposure of plastic-associated chemicals to humans, creating a risk to human health. It is hard to recycle plastic bags. Recycling or reusing may hold off some of the problem, but it does not eradicate it. By making Grey Lynn plastic bag free we will be joining a growing number of communities around New Zealand (and the world!) who don’t want to be part of this global pollution epidemic.

The launch will be on Sunday the First of July. Kicking off from 9am – 1pm, there will be workshops on how to fold origami bin liners, live music, farmers market, a raffle and spot prizes from Kokako Organic Coffee, Harvest Wholefoods, Nature Baby and Allgood Organics.  Though this is a one day event, many of the Grey Lynn businesses have committed to keeping the village plastic bag free.

Click here for more event details.

Nature Baby is proud to use only paper shopping bags, made using recycled paper and vegetable inks. We hope to see you at the event on Sunday! xx NB