Good Green Fairy Rewards Green Shoppers

The Good Green Fairy made her first appearance in Takaka on Saturday 11th December, at Golden Bay's Santa Parade, giving free shopping bags to other children as possible Christmas presents for their parents.

The "Golden Bay Bag Ladies" are about to launch their Plastic Bag-Free initiative with strong support from the community, making them the first

place in New Zealand to adopt alternative sustainable shopping bags.

The already popular fairy will be on Takaka Hill on January 1st to give away free cloth shopping bags to visitors entering the bay and again on January 4th to hand out prizes rewarding shoppers using eco-friendly, reusable shopping bags.

"We have had a great response to the Plastic Bag-Free Golden Bay campaign from most businesses, with a $2,000 donation from Lone Star Farms enabling us to give away the cloth bags to kick start the change in shoppers' habits".

"Great prizes have also been offered for our Good Green Fairy Awards which will see shoppers who are using reusable cloth bags to be eligible to win."

We realize that it will take time to change people's habits and remember to take their own bags with them when they go shopping, so we are planning a one year transition period." said Nicola Basham, one of the Bag Ladies. "Some countries have imposed levies on plastic shopping bags resulting in immediate reduction in their usage, however we intend to do this because our community wants to reduce waste and pollution.

Research shows that New Zealanders are among the world biggest wasters, using over 3 million plastic shopping bags every day.

ENDS

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>