Kenilworth residents urged to cut down on their plastic waste as part of 'Plastic Free July'

Kenilworth residents are being urged to thinking about their use of plastic waste this month.

As part of a national initiative called Plastic Free July, Plastic Free Kenilworth (PFK) is urging people to refuse one item of single use plastic waste.

The group want Kenilworth to become a single-use plastic free town.

To help get the whole town involved in the initiative, PFK is launching a Kenilworth-wide competition to ask individuals to give up not just one but take a pledge to give up the four big contributors to single-use plastics which are: Plastic straws, plastic bags, plastic water bottles and coffee cups.

Alison Firth, who leads Plastic Free Kenilworth, said: “The competition is simple. Just give up the four single-use plastics then send us a short video clip of your plastic free journey.

"We want you to have fun with this, but most of all we want to hear what you’re doing to help reduce single-use plastic.

"Be bold, silly, inventive, outrageous but send us a message that you are loving being plastic free and that will inspire others to do the same.

"The entries will be judged by myself and Verity, (co-coordinator of PFK) and Marc Hornby of the Virgins & Castle pub (who is our first Plastic Free Business Champion)."

First prize is a £50 gift voucher from the Virgins & Castle and a £30 voucher to spend at Reyousable.

Second prize is lunch for two at the Clarendon Arms and a £20 voucher to spend at Reyousable.

Third Prize is £10 voucher to spend at Reyousable.

Submit your entries to [email protected] by July 31.

Reyousable are also offering 10 per cent off all their products for the month of July when you visit www.reyousable.eco using code PFK10

There are already three 'Plastic Free Champions' in Kenilworth - The Virgins & Castle, The Clarendon Arms and Harringtons - and PLK want more to join them.

Alison added: “If you own an independent business in Kenilworth you can join us in our single use plastic free crusade by giving up three items of single-use plastic as well as identifying further long-term goals for getting rid of more single use plastic in the future.

Please send us in your success stories and we will contact you to award you with your Plastic Free Business Champion plaque, certificate and logo which you can use to advertise your business, just like we’ve done with our first champions, The Virgins & Castle pub.

"More and more people want to see less single use plastic so this can be an appealing draw for new green-minded customers."

The Famous Virgins & Castle pub on the old High Street in Kenilworth was the first business to put themselves forward and support the initiative.

Co-owner of the pub, Marc Hornby said: “We’re really proud to be working with Plastic Free Kenilworth to help reduce single-use plastic in the town.

"We have several initiatives running that includes using loose leaf tea as tea bags contain plastic.

"We serve filtered water in re-usable glass bottles which we provide to our guests for free and we also only use paper straws.

"We’re now asking our suppliers to supply our produce and products in alternative or loose packaging without plastic where it’s safe and they’re able to do so. We’re also working with our brewery, Everards, to see how this can be replicated across their 178 pubs to further increase the positive impact.

We hope that the town gets behind Alison and the team at Plastic Free Kenilworth and we’re really looking forward to judging the entries for the competition.”

Charlotte McCosker from the Clarendon Arms and Harringtons said: “We are really proud to be recognised as a Plastic Free Business in Kenilworth, we’ve been trying really hard to reduce the amount of plastic we have and we are still striving to improve."