The WI has a long history of campaigning on a wide range of issues. Our campaigns tackle issues that matter to women in their communities. From equal pay to climate change, mental health and violence against women, over the past 100 years we have embraced a diverse set of challenges. The WI has brought about real change – and we are just getting started!

We have campaigned to End Plastic Soup and Environmenstrual Week 2020, to remove period plastics.

So we were delighted to be asked to support Greener Brockenhurst in their application to get Plastic Free Status and were over the moon when in June the village was awarded Plastic Free Community status by marine conservation charity, Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), in recognition of the work done to start reducing the impact of single-use plastic on the environment .

It is great to have joined a network of communities across the UK who are leading the way to tackle throw away plastic at source.

Our Pledge for SAS Plastic Free Brockenhurst is:

-Work to remove at least 3 single-use plastic items from our day-to-day activities.

–Commit to include our stance on single-use plastics in communications.

-Raise awareness and support plastic free initiatives in the community.

Evelyn, our President, has already implemented buying milk from the Welcome Store in the village from their milk dispenser in glass bottles for our meetings, hence saving single use plastic containers.

Evelyn has also suggested that on our trip to Breamore in August that we could take a reusable water bottle, or a flask of tea to save buying/using single use plastics.  If we take a picnic, we could use reusable containers rather than cling film.

Issy has pledged to dutch laminating posters for the WI noticeboards.

For our Competition of the Month at our July meeting, to tie in with Plastic Free July, we asked our members to think of an idea, write down or even make, something to demonstrate actions taken to remove plastic items in our everyday lives to make a difference to the tide of plastic which threatens our planet. 

Ideas included:

• A reusable shopping bag instead of disposable plastic carrier bags (Maureen’s example was made from recycled plastics too).
• Using paper bags.
• Using bars of soap. Did you know that you can also buy shampoo soap in bars?
• Buying toothpaste in glass jars and sunscreen in tins.
• Using containers instead of putting foods in plastic bags.
• Pledging not to laminate posters.
• Buying a book that gives ideas for “Green Living’, including recipes for cleaning solutions so you don’t have to buy a bottle each time.
• And the winner with the most coins was Evelyn’s homemade plastic-free bowl cover to stop the need for cling film.

Kim did a fantastic display with some ideas of things that we can do to remove single use plastic.

Conversations about the age of people’s Tupperwear ensued, with some being 40+ years old – definitely not single use plastic!

Ways to remove single use plastics include:

• Using reusable water bottles
• Using containers for food storage instead of using cling film -like glass jars with lids and Tupperwear (how old is your Tupperwear – do tell us in the comments)
• Using a material Sandwich wrapper instead of cling film of a reusable container.
• Using bars of soap or buying liquid soap refills
• Buying washing detergent in cardboard boxes, or looking at alternatives such as soap nuts, washing sheets, or buying liquid refills

Britta reminded us about the fantastic recycling facility we have is the village hall car park and all of the items that you can recycle in the Recycling Shed:

We would love to hear your ideas for fulfilling out pledge to Plastic Free Brockenhurst. Perhaos things that you already do or things that we can all adopt.

Please either put them in the comments of email us with them. Thank you.