Shropshire Star

Plastic Free July for Market Drayton librarians

Library staff are hoping to inspire young people as they take up Plastic Free July.

Published
Market Drayton Library is supporting Plastic Free July. Pictured is library assistant Jessie Wolf.

The team at Market Drayton Library have taken up the Plastic Free July challenge to try and reduce their use of single-use plastics.

Alistair Pack, branch manager, said the library's summer reading challenge is also to do with climate change and recycling and is about encouraging children to read about these issues during the school holidays.

So the staff thought they would take on a challenge themselves to bring the two events together.

Alistair explained: "I spoke to Councillor Wilson from Shropshire Council who put me in touch with Generation Zero Carbon which launched on Earth Day and is Shropshire based.

"I got talking to them and here at the library we are all interested in climate change and recycling so we thought it would be good to do Plastic Free July.

Library assistant Jessie Wolf

"Our summer reading challenge this year is coming up and the theme is all about climate change so we thought it could all tie in together. As that's our summer theme anyway we thought we would get involved in Plastic Free July. It will be about trying to reduce our usage of single use plastics.

"We have also each come up with a pledge we can take past this month, such as not using plastic toothbrushes and things."

On August 25 this year, Generation Zero Carbon will be heading to the library to give a talk about all things climate changes and recycling, which Alistair said tickets will be available for soon.

He added: "The summer reading challenge aims to get children back into reading over the summer holidays when school has finished. They can get stickers and track their progress.

"Its designed to stop that downward curve as literary drops over the summer period. We recently had our new council leader, Lezley Picton, talking about the council being carbon neutral by 2030 and we wanted to be a part of that in some way."