About

Plastic Free Swindon is a campaign to help end plastic pollution. It was launched for Plastic Free July 2018 by Swindon Climate Action Network. As part of Friends of the Earth, we form part of the global Break Free From Plastic movement. Efforts to end plastic pollution are global and increasingly co-ordinated. There is much hope when we work together.

The campaign is made up of volunteers and is non-politically affiliated. However, it is very important that we address political issues. Strong legislation is urgently required, it would make a huge difference in reducing plastic pollution. See the government section for further info.

Aims

See the library for further info on these points.

Refuse, reduce, reuse, repair, recycle, rethink, rehome, rot, bin

We endeavour to reach our goals through:

  • Providing information.
  • Hosting events.
  • Facilitation.
  • Support and co-operation.
  • Identifying problems and solutions.

We will do this by:

  • Engaging with the public.
  • Engaging with schools and colleges.
  • Engaging with businesses.
  • Engaging with MPs / government
  • Engaging with the council and parishes.
  • Engaging with other organisations.
  • Liasing with local media.
  • Working with local, national and international groups.
  • Extensive research.

See the activities section for how we've been doing that.

Website info

Web hosting

This website was created from the ground up to be efficient, keeping file sizes and load low. It is hosted by a small, independent company called Faelix, who own UK-based servers powered by renewable energy and are considerate of environmental and social issues. They support Free (Libre) Open Source Software (FOSS / FLOSS), hosting an instance of Jitsi and present on Mastodon. If you're wondering what FLOSS has to do with plastic pollution, see 'Reduce' in the take action section.

Website design

Natural materials and nature were the two key elements that we wanted to portray. The website design developed to have a good meaning to it. The logo reads Plastic Free Swindon. Behind it, there is a beautiful plastic free Swindon (a picture of Queen's Park). There is a fence which is a barrier; the aspects of plastic pollution. Behind the fence there is a scroll / paper. It is meant to be like an old map containing information which can lead us past the barriers to the beautiful plastic free Swindon. The wooden board on the side or bottom of the page (depending on the screen size) is like a community noticeboard where events and milestones are recorded. Thanks to Willo the Wisp and Lucas Brown for helping with the design.

Credits

  • Plastic bag jellyfish picture courtesy of Swindon artist, Willo the Wisp.
  • Covid-19 picture in the about section courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. It has a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
  • The main font is called Adira, which has no license.
  • The font used for navigation and on the timeline is called Etched and has no license.