12 STEPS TO MAKING YOURSELF BAG-FREE

Step 1:
Admit to yourself you are a bag-addict - and had better do something about it before you stuff up your country, your kids’ future and a whole lot of innocent wildlife.

Step 2:
Come to believe that you have the power to reject plastic shopping bags. That you can truly live without them. That this power will set you free!

Step 3:
Make a firm decision to reject plastic shopping bags, now and forever. Take part in the Plastic Bag Famine and always carry a reusable bag wherever you go.

Step 4:
Find out about the mess plastic bags are making of the world. The waste, the choked landfills, the polluted rivers and estuaries, the dead animals, the litter, the greenhouse emissions. Ask yourself: why did I ever become a bag-addict?

Step 5:
Confess your addiction to others. Go into your home, workplace or the pub and cry in a loud, proud voice “I am a bag addict”. Be absolutely honest about your addiction to unrecyclable rubbish.

Step 6:
Reflect on your bag-crimes. The 25,000 plastic bags you will use in your lifetime were each used for minutes – but they will still be here when your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren inhabit the place. And their descendents. What kind of ancestor are you?

Step 7:
Reflect on whether it was ignorance, laziness or stupidity that made you use plastic bags in the first place. Take a vow to correct these character defects in other aspects of your life as a consumer.

Step 8:
Make a list of all the harms which your prodigal and unthinking use of plastic bags has caused.

Step 9:
Take some action, small or great, to make amends in each case.

Step 10:
Lay the foundation for a bag-free future. Beware of the habits that could cause you to lapse back into your old, polluting ways. Always carry a re-useable bag as a symbol of your freedom.

Step 11:
Having purged yourself of evil ways, go forth and give some other ugly polluter a serve. Harangue your family, your friends, the shop assistant, the people in the checkout queue and your local politician without drawing breath and without mercy. Never give up until they do.

Step 12:
Reflect proudly that, if you never do another damn thing in your life, in giving up plastic bags you have done something worthwhile for the world. You deserve a bloody medal.