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Press Releases
X-Ray challenges family to live without plastic bags
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Could you live without plastic bags? That's the challenge ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Wales's
consumer programme X-Ray sets one
North Wales family in the first episode of its new series tonight.
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Four hundred million plastic bags are used every year in Wales. But the tide
seems to be turning as environmental concerns are changing the attitude
of the public and the supermarkets.
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The Welsh Assembly Government has made an agreement with retailers to
reduce the number of plastic bags used by 25% – and has not ruled out
banning plastic bags altogether if it is given sufficient powers in the
future.
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Major supermarkets are now also selling reusable hemp and cotton
bags to increase awareness.
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X-Ray presenter Rhodri Owen visited Llangollen, where Friends of the
Earth want to ban plastic bags in the town.
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Rhodri's mission was to find
a family brave enough to rise to the challenge of banishing the bags for
a whole week – and he found the Found family.
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Dad Alan, Mum Clare, their boys Tom (11) and Jack (9), and their two dogs
Lottie and Morris, describe themselves as "quite environmentally
friendly".
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But before they accepted the X-Ray challenge they had only used
some energy saving bulbs and a plastic bottle in the toilet cistern to
save water.
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Alan says: "Well, we didn't think we were that bad until we knew X-Ray was coming
and then we started to think about it more.
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"We realised we
used plastic bags for lots of things – they come in particularly handy
when we're walking the dogs, so I'm not sure what we'll do when nature
calls!"
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But as the Found family discover, living without plastic bags for food
shopping and everyday other essentials is no picnic. They struggle
without their bags to line bins, scoop the doggy poop and pack up the
school gym kits.
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And the weekly supermarket shop also becomes fraught,
as the boys explain: "Mummy and daddy went to the supermarket today and
they had to come back to the house to collect bags because they forgot
to take some with them."
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Find out how the family gets on without plastic bags...
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X-Ray, Monday 5
November 2007, 7.30pm, ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One Wales
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³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Wales Press Office
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