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 (vision, mission and principles here). 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 as strong legislation is urgently required.

Aims

We support:

• A system of zero waste. It is good for health and for local economies. See the 'zero waste' category of the library for further info.
• The aims of the Plastic Pollution Bill, a structured timetable to eliminate plastic pollution.
• Implementing effective legislation on synthetic chemicals.
• Local, independent and organic / natural. These aspects reduce the need for plastic and are beneficial in many other respects. For example, reduced food miles.
• Equality. Pollution and inequality are linked

We do not support:

• Plastic 'recycling', better termed as downcycling. This harmful non-solution has been sold to us for the last 50 years by Big Plastic and governments.
• Waste inineration / waste-to-energy. This includes the Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF) plant at Cheney Manor and the planned incinerator at South Marston. See the incineration section of the library and our article on incineration for further details.
• The Environment Bill. It doesn't provide the legisalation necessary to stem plastic production as quickly as possible. See the government section for further info.
• The global food system. It is a system of oppression where a third of food is wasted, reliant on using cheap plastic packaging for transport. Many UK supermarkets front this unhealthy system of monocultures, pesticides and inequality. That's why UK supermarkets' plastic use has gone up over the last few years.

See the library for clarification of these points.

We endeavour to reach our goals through:

• Education.
• Hosting events.
• Facilitation.
• Support and co-operation.
• Undersanding problems and implementing solutions
• Engaging with the public, schools and colleges, businesses, MPs / government, council and parishes, and others.
• Liasing with local media.
• Working with local, national and international groups.
• Extensive research.

See the 'activities' section for how we've been working to achieve our aims.

Website info

Personal information

We collect no information from you unless you communicate with us or for activities. Information is used for the campaign only and will remain with Plastic Free Swindon organisers.

• If you write to us, we will use the information that you provide for communication and the emails will be stored as a record of those communications.
• For specific activities, we will state what information is used for.

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 Browne for helping with the design.

Credits

Images

• Plastic bag jellyfish picture courtesy of Swindon artist, Willo the Wisp.
• Plastic Free Swindon image courtesy of Lucas Moon Browne.
• Covid-19 picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. It has a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
• Swindon ward map on the activities page courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. It has a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
• TTIP banner picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. It has a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
• Wikileaks logo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. It has a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
• EU / Brexit flag courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. It has a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
• 'Coca Cola - Mexican death sentence' © Tomas Castelazo, www.tomascastelazo.com / Wikimedia Commons. It has a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
• Plastic recycling symbol courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. It has a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Fonts

• The main font is called Grobold, which has no license.
• The font used for navigation and on the timeline is called Fredericka The Great and has an SIL Open Font license.
• The font used for the Ghandi quote in the take action section is called Alex Brush and has an SIL Open Font license.