Witney News - Schools Prize Plea as campaign deadline nears

Schools Prize Plea as campaign deadline nears

Witney shoppers are being urged to make a big final effort to help their local school win a prize as part of the town’s ‘Bags of Life’ recycling-re-use campaign.

The campaign to encourage shoppers to take their own bag for life or re-use an old plastic bag rather than collect new ones when they go shopping is now in its final month. Shoppers who are offered a plastic bag when they buy something in a participating town centre store, but say ‘no thanks’ are given a voucher which can be passed on to a participating school in Witney or neighbouring villages.

The 18 schools taking part have been divided into three groups based on the number of pupils they have. The one in each category that collects the most vouchers will win a prize to spend on an environmental project at the school. Shoppers have until Thursday 31st January to get their vouchers in. A list of shops and schools taking part is available on the website of campaign organisers, the Oxfordshire Town Chambers Network (OTCN) at www.otcn.co.uk

More than 90 Witney town centre shops and traders – including some of the bigger stores, Waitrose, Boots, Somerfield, and Debenhams in the new Marriotts Walk development - signed up to be part of the scheme. Waitrose Section Manager Elaine Lattimore says: “The ‘Bags of Life in Witney’ campaign has definitely raised awareness of the need to reduce the number of plastic bags customers use. It’s been a very good interactive project that has involved businesses, schools and the local community, and we’ve had a huge number of customers asking for the vouchers.”

Laura Cooper, who won a competition to design the voucher used for the scheme says: “Winning one of the prizes will mean a lot to children at the school and the environmental work they do in different projects so I hope everyone who has collected vouchers will make sure they get to one of the participating schools before the 31st January deadline.”

The project is funded by Oxfordshire Waste Partnership and led by the Oxfordshire Town Chambers Network (OTCN). OTCN is a communications network bringing together 24 local chambers and other business groups in the county with 1600 member businesses between them, plus 12 events networks with a database reach in excess of 3,000 businesses.

For more details about the scheme visit www.otcn.co.uk/projects/plastic_bags.htm