Plastic-free Kerikeri members Barbara Belger (left), Helen Moorhouse, Laura Jerome and Zoe Edmonds produce reusable fabric bags during a Saturday sewing bee. Photo / Peter de Graaf
Plastic-free Kerikeri members Barbara Belger (left), Helen Moorhouse, Laura Jerome and Zoe Edmonds produce reusable fabric bags during a Saturday sewing bee. Photo / Peter de Graaf
Next time Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pops down to the shops but forgets she's banned single-use plastic bags she won't have to worry what to put her shopping in.
To celebrate the Government's bag ban, members of Plastic-free Kerikeri made a reusable cloth bag just for the PM and popped it in the post to Parliament.
Group member Zoe Edmonds said the ban on single-use plastic bags from next year was ''a small start in a bigger conversation about getting rid of all plastic".
''That's why she's receiving a bag from us, it's a thank you,'' Edmonds said.
Plastic-free Kerikeri founder Barbara Belger with a reusable fabric bag made for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. The other sewers are Helen Moorhouse, Laura Jerome and Zoe Edmonds. Photo / Peter de Graaf
The group meets with their sewing machines one Saturday a month to turn used fabric into reusable shopping bags. The bags are sold at Nosh in Waipapa for $5 with all proceeds going to plastic-reduction projects.
Group founder Barbara Belger said she learned what she needed to know about making the bags after attending a session with Plastic Free Kaeo, one of the first groups out of the blocks in Northland, and received set-up funding from Transition Towns Bay of Islands.
Up to six ladies attend the sewing bees at the Cornerstone Church, by the Heritage Bypass, where having fun is at least as important as saving the planet. Some members find it so therapeutic they make bags every night at home as well.
They also screenprint their own labels with emergency phone numbers for services such as Depression Helpline and Women's Refuge.
Income from bag sales will be used to buy a second-hand sewing machine, for volunteers who don't have their own, and for plastic-reduction projects such as providing compostable dog poo bags at Roland's Wood, a popular dog walking park in Kerikeri.
Belger said the group's impact in terms of reducing plastic use was small but they hoped to change people's thinking.
''It's a finite planet. Plastic takes 300-400 years to decompose and it gets everywhere.''
Plastic bags also threatened marine life and required oil to produce, she said.
In the beginning it took her all morning to make one bag; now the group cranks out at least 10 per session.
"Normally we can't make them fast enough," Belger said.
■ Plastic Free Kerikeri needs more volunteers to cut, sew and iron, as well as donations of clean fabric. Email barbarabelger@gmail.com or contact the group via their Facebook page #PlasticFreeKerikeri. Other Far North groups are based in Kaeo and Kaitaia (Facebook pages Plastic Free Kaeo and Plastic Free Te Hiku).
