FOLLOWING the recent coverage of the ReFILL initiative, and the importance of everyone cutting their single-use plastic consumption, South West Lakes has decided to take action at its Lakeside Café, Roadford Lake, by boldly stating its aim to be ‘single-use plastic free over its counter by 2020’.

Joining Lakeside in this challenge will be the SWL café at Wimbleball Lake on Exmoor and its subsidiary charity Wheal Martyn Trust.

Andy Parsons, chief executive, said: “In support of the ReFILL initiative, we must ensure that our charity is doing everything it can to cut all single-use plastic. For us this includes bottles, condiment sachets, takeaway cups and much more. South West Water have been a key supporter of the ReFILL initiative, which began its life in Bude and we will work with them as a partner with the aim to roll out the ReFILL initiative at our key locations throughout the South West.

“All SWL employees are behind this initiative, as are our licenced café operators at Argal Lake and Stithians Lake — in fact, both are well on their way to being 100% plastic free. At Lakeside, we have been using Vegware takeaway cups for some time, which are made of plant material and are fully compostable. What we will be doing is encouraging more of our customers to sit in and relax, eliminating the need for a takeaway cup altogether.”

Over the next few months, South West Lakes will work with its other café operators, talk further about its plans and encourage people to follow its progress on Facebook and Twitter. During 2017, thousands of plastic bottles were sold over the counter at its establishments across the South West and the charity wants to ensure that this becomes a thing of the past.

It is estimated that only around half of the 38.5-million plastic bottles used in the UK every day are recycled, with around 16-million ending up in landfill, being burnt or entering the environment and waterways.

Trustee and former chair of Keep Britain Tidy, Dinah Nichols, champions South West Lakes’ pledge, and said: “I’m very much in favour of this initiative and we are working with South West Water to introduce ReFILL at our sites as this will really start to tackle the big problem of single-use plastics.”

As part of the ReFILL initiative, South West Lakes will gladly refill visitors’ reusable drinking bottles whilst they are enjoying the beautiful surroundings of the water resource reservoirs.

To find out more about the devastating impacts of single-use plastic and the ReFILL initiative, visit www.lessplastic.org.uk and www.refill.org.uk. Follow South West Lakes’ progress on Facebook, SW Lakes, or Twitter, @swlakes.