Pirate Day - Penzance are ahead on re-usable plastic glasses

On Pirate Day, Hastings was filled with the wonderful spectacle of thousands of people of all ages joyfully flocking through the streets in fantastic costumes, proud of the record since 2012 for 14,000 people dressed as pirates, won back from Penzance in 2012 and since unbroken.

Sadly, however, Penzance is way ahead on a much more important record, that of cutting down on single use plastic. Pirate Day 2018 saw over 15,000 people in Hastings and thousands of single use plastic glasses used by the many pubs catering for the visitors. Most of these were Grade 5 plastic which is not normally recycled at present.

Penzance (and other) festivals are offering re-usable plastic glasses for which people pay a returnable deposit. With some sort of festival almost every weekend in Hastings it is surely time for the licensing authorities to work with local pubs and bars to come up with a more sustainable solution.

Then we could start to really be in the running for competing with Penzance to be a truly plastic free town.