Australian groups awarded for reductions in plastic bag use

Keep Australia Beautiful, in partnership with Veolia Environmental Services, has announced the National Winners of its 2006 Plastic Bag Reduction Awards.

The awards were launched nationally by cricketer, Glenn McGrath to recognise and reward local efforts to help eliminate single-use plastic shopping bags across Australia.

"Over the past few years, many successful initiatives have helped reduce plastic bag use significantly. While we still use around 4 billion bags a year, supermarkets have reported a 45% reduction since 2002, and a saving of around 3 billion bags in the past 2 years," Keep Australia Beautiful national chairman, Don Chambers said.

The national winners of the Plastic Bag Reduction Awards 2006 are:

• Centro Colonnades Shopping Centre, SA (Business)
• North Haven Dolphin Rangers Club, SA (Schools)
• Shire of Esperance, WA (Government Authority)
• Redlands Tourism, QLD (Community Group).

Joining McGrath as an Ambassador for the Plastic Bag Reduction Awards, and congratulating all state and national winners on their efforts, is 2006 Commonwealth Games gold medallist and flag bearer, walker, Jane Saville.

"When competing overseas, I'm often shocked at people's attitudes to litter, and plastic bags in particular. People are very complacent in other parts of the world so it very refreshing to see the work being done here by the people who entered these awards. It is so easy to just say "˜no' to plastic bags and if everyone did it we could drastically reduce this unnecessary waste even further," Saville said.

A free plastic bags education resource, developed by Keep Australia Beautiful, has also been produced for schools as part of the awards program.

The education kit is available online at www.kab.org.au/plasticbags/ or on CD for teachers and students who wish to learn more about protecting the environment.