Members of the Abingdon Carbon Cutters (Cutting Plastic) group were encouraging people to unwrap produce outside the large Supermarket on the Marcham Road in Abingdon this morning as part of a Mass Unwrap.

After removing single-use plastics from their shopping, customers could put purchases into their own containers, bags etc. The plastics were collected and returned to the supermarket. One lady brought back all the plastic packaging she had collected this year.

The emphasis was on the unnecessary plastic, not the supermarket.

The hope is to encourage the customers and the supermarket and its suppliers to reduce single-use plastics.

There has already been a huge reduction in the use of single use plastic shopping bags.

Walking in Abingdon this afternoon my wife commented how bad the pollution from traffic was down the Vineyard.

The air pollution used to be concentrated in the town centre shopping streets before the Abingdon Integrated Transport Strategy (AbITS), implemented in 2006,  started holding traffic outside the town centre in roads like the Vineyard and Ock Street.

On investigation I found that the VWHDC council monitors levels of pollutants around the town centre. Monitoring tubes are fixed to lamp posts. They are exposed for a month at a time and sent to the laboratory for analysis and reporting.

One monitoring tube is in the Vineyard, and like most of the tubes around Abingdon town centre it shows a slowly decreasing trend in nitrogen dioxide levels.

This data is available at https://oxfordshire.air-quality.info.

We are back in Abingdon after a few days away. There were blue skies as we arrived back in town.

The Vale of White Horse District Council recently launched an anti idling campaign to improve air quality. They say If people are stopped for more than a minute or parked then they should turn their engines off.

They also say

* 1 minute of idling produces 150 balloons of harmful pollutants.
* People inside cars are exposed to high levels of air pollution, with children especially at risk of harmful effects.

On June 29th the government announced higher fines for vehicles idling while parked. It was already an offence under the Road Traffic (Vehicle Emissions) (Fixed Penalty) (England) Regulations (Statutory Instrument 2002 No. 1808).

Abingdon has been awarded ‘Plastic Free Communities’ Status as it takes action on Single-Use Plastic.

Abingdon has joined a network of communities across the UK who are leading the way to tackle throw away plastic at source. Abingdon is the 65th Community to be awarded Plastic Free status by marine conservation charity, Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), in recognition of the work it has done to starting to reduce the impact of single-use plastic on the environment. (The picture was taken at Added Ingredients where people can refill containers with detergents and washing liquids

as well as coffee ground on the premises, and a large variety of teas.)

Local Leads Anne Smart and Caroline Townsend started the campaign last year due to rising concern about the amount of damage being done by plastic pollution, particularly to our marine environment and wildlife.

Abingdon Cuts Plastic is a sub-group of the longstanding environmental group Abingdon Carbon Cutters.

Anne says: ‘Our Town Council officially supports our initiatives, and many sectors of the community are doing their best to reduce the amount of single-use plastic they use. Our MP, Layla Moran, is actively supporting our efforts to reduce the amount of plastic packaging used by local supermarkets.’

Eight local schools have joined our campaign, and we are encouraging others.

In October and April, Abingdon Cuts Plastic teamed up with Kingfisher canoe club and the litter-picking group AbiBinit, to hold two big river and riverbank clean-ups, which were well supported by lots of volunteers.