Peterborough charity urges residents to back scheme to reduce plastic waste

The charity PECT is bidding to bag a cash boost from the Tesco Bags of Help initiative to help reduce use of single-use plastic bottles and promote a healthy lifestyle, by improving access to free drinking water throughout Peterborough.

Plastic bottles contribute to the millions of tonnes of plastics that end up in the ocean every year, harming marine wildlife and spreading toxic chemicals. In the UK alone about 15 million bottles are used and discarded per day.

PECT wants to bring a new bottle reuse scheme to the city through promoting free tap-water refill points in cafes, shops, businesses and transport hubs.

A free app will be available to download, showing all participating locations and which will be used to monitor the impact and success of the project.

Peterborough City Councillor Richard Ferris said: “By helping people to refill and reuse their drinks bottles, we can encourage more environmentally-friendly behaviour, reducing the amount of plastic waste; promote more healthy lifestyles; and engage local businesses in being part of the solution.

“This is an exciting opportunity for a partnership approach to tackling one of the biggest environmental challenges we face.”

Tesco’s community funding scheme Bags of Help sees grants of up to £4,000, raised from carrier bag sales in Tesco stores, awarded to local community projects. The scheme has already delivered over £40 million to 9,700 projects across the UK.

Shoppers can head to Tesco stores between January and February to vote for who they think should take away the top grant. Customers can cast their vote using a token given to them at the check-out in store each time they shop.

For more information about PECT, call 01733 568408 or visit www.pect.org.uk. To find out more about the Tesco Bags of Help scheme, take a look at