· A person uses a plastic carrier bag on average for only 12 minutes.

·  A plastic bag can take between 500 to 1000 years to break down in the environment.

· Each year 10,500 million plastic bags are distributed in Spain,  but the Spanish government has drafted plans to reduce the consumption of these bags by half by 2009. It will ban non-biodegradable single-use bags from the following year.

When a plastic bag enters the ocean it becomes a harmful piece of litter. Many marine animals mistake plastic bags for food and swallow them, with painful and often fatal consequences.

The day of the plastic bag is coming to an end. In country after country, in town after town, people are realising that, in this case at least, the old ways were better and that the bags our parents and grandparents used over and over again were in fact superior. They were better adapted to the task in hand and were cheaper. The only way plastic bags are cheap is that shoppers do not have to pay for them at the point of sale. But we all pay later; when we pay for the cleaning of the damage they do to the environment and in the loss of flora and fauna.

A very strong case has been made all over the world for eliminating the use of millions of plastic bags every day,  so what can we all do in Xàbia? Can we return to using "proper" shopping bags and see this as a positive action, which will not cause hardship to anyone?

The Environment working group of Agenda 21 has been researching this question, and after lots of discussion we feel the best way is to adopt  a "poco a poco" approach. We are planning to introduce attractive, jute shopping bags in Xàbia during the coming year. Small shopkeepers can't afford to buy the minimum amount of these bags.  We are looking for people to help us buy a large quantity cheaply so that we can sell them on in small numbers to shopkeepers and stallholders as and when they need them. Would you like to help?

Travellers return from France, Britain, Ireland and other countries with beautiful bags which they bought there, instead of using plastic. These bags are permanent reminders of your travels, of a stay in a place that you enjoyed.  Let's make sure that in Xàbia, we too, have beautiful bags that are not only a pleasure for us who live here to use, but are taken away by our visitors, souvenirs of their stays in beautiful, sustainable, Xàbia.

It is always good to revisit the words of the Cree Native American poet

"Only when the last tree has died and
The last river has been poisoned and
The last fish has been caught,
Will we realise that
We cannot eat money"

Nina Davies