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Ottery Tar Barrels goes plastic-free

  • by JW

Great news from the Tar Barrels follk in Ottery, courtesy of the Herald:

 

Ottery Tar Barrels bans single use plastic in ‘historic’ move

Ottery Tar Barrels bans single use plastic in ‘historic’ move

 

With more from the organisers:

 

Blazing a trail this year at the Tar barrels!

This year we are starting on a new initiative for the tar barrel event. As we all know every year the event brings thousands of people to our streets, this inevitably creates a lot of waste all over the town.

With that in mind last year, we placed waste bins in locations around the town to ease the pressure and cost on cleaning up after the event is finished. It helped but we still had a lot of single use plastic cups and tin cans strewn everywhere for street scene to clean up. This department form EDDC do a fantastic job every year and we need to ease the burden on them.

This year will see a start on ending that particular problem. We have joined forces with all the pubs and some of the organisations that sell alcohol during the event. The idea is the Carnival and Tar Barrel committee will supply a souvenir reusable plastic cup to sell to the visitors.

They pay for their cup on your 1st visit to the bar, then return with the cup back to the bar to buy a drink, less the cost of the cup each time you return.

The aim is clear, we need to reduce the environmental impact the event has on the town. This will also create a safer environment for our rollers, when you have a flaming tar barrel perched on your shoulders, the last thing you need are tin cans or loads of slippery plastic under your feet!

We aim to go further next year with regards to fast food containers, our plan there is only allowing the traders a to use recyclable or biodegradable container to distribute their food.

So, I would 1st of all like to thank our publicans for their continued support and enthusiasm in helping us get this project up and running. And to the plastic free Ottery group who are also supporting us with this initiative and helping us on the night. The catch phrase will be if you see it pick it up!

We will have positions dotted around the town for people to return their unwanted cups, and for our waste team who will be there all night picking up the cups that are discarded on to the streets.

 

What’s new for Tar Barrels 2018?