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Fashion students put the chic into shopping
They are the must-have accessory for every environmentally-aware person - and now Wiltshire College fashion students are helping promote the county council's very own alternative to plastic bags.
Wiltshire County Council's popular reusable shopping bags have been given a makeover to make them even more attractive.
The new Recycle for Wiltshire green jute bags are biodegradable, ethically made and carbon neutral making them the greenest the council has sold.
Alternatives to plastic bags have become ever-more popular with the Modbury bag from Devon proving a fashion hit among celebrities. With London Fashion Week about to get underway (February 10 -15) there will be plenty of focus on the latest trends.
Students studying the Btec diploma in fashion at Wiltshire College will be taking the principles of clothes-making and recycling even further. They have been set the challenge of designing and making contemporary garments or accessories using the new reusable bags and to promote the importance of conserving resources. The project will form part of their landscape and environment project to be exhibited at the annual end of the year fashion show.
Each of the 16, first year students will develop a board of initial ideas using fashion illustration and textile sampling. From these they construct a final outcome using only four bags each.
Helen Chivers, fashion tutor at the college, said: "Our fashion students are highly innovative and resourceful. This project gives them the perfect opportunity to display their creative talents.
"The concept is a huge challenge and the material from these bags gives them a great canvas to experiment with. I hope the resulting ideas will help inspire people to think about how they can reuse materials."
Toby Sturgis, Wiltshire County Council's cabinet member for planning and waste, said: "The students from Wiltshire College show that recycling doesn't have to be a chore but is also about being fun and creative to make the best use of what we have available.
"I look forward to seeing the designs that come out of this."
Although fractionally smaller, the new bags come with a more comfortable luxury handle and are available from all county libraries priced £1.25. This compares with £1 for the old bags. The rise reflects the increased costs of materials but means residents are still getting the practical bags at a great price.
Wiltshire waste services manager Andy Conn said: "In the last two-and-a-half-years Wiltshire County Council has distributed around 20,000 of its green reusable shopping bags through libraries and public events.
"In fact we know they've been taken across the world as people have sent us pictures of them sporting their Wiltshire bags from Afghanistan to the tip of Africa.
"They have proved extremely successful and cost-effective in promoting the council and encouraging recycling - but we thought it was time to improve the product.
"Following feedback from residents the bags now have much stronger handles. We also have our website address www.recycleforwiltshire.com on them so people can easily remember where to find out all they need to know about recycling locally - from checking opening times of the HRCs to finding out when your next black box collection is. The bags are still made of the same hard-wearing practical material which is totally recyclable."
Several communities in Wiltshire have already made their own commitment to phasing out plastic bags. From January 1 this year Tisbury went plastic-free while Colerne introduced its own reusuable bags more than a year ago and Malmesbury is considering becoming a plastic bag-free town.
Mr Sturgis said: "We believe the new bags will prove as popular as the old ones and help promote recycling far and wide."
And if your old reusable bag has come to the end of its life then there's no need to throw it away as it can be composted.
ENDS
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