Find your community

We do not expect communities to be totally plastic free. Our aim is to tackle the single-use plastic crisis, so that’s the avoidable stuff that’s everywhere. Things like plastic drinks bottles, disposable coffee cups, sachets, bathroom plastics, excessive food packaging, takeaway containers etc. These are the things that have a huge impact on our environment and which we can make changes to eliminate. Check them out here:

Yes! Plastic pollution affects all communities. It does not matter where you are, whether you’re on shore or inland, urban or rural, high-tide or high-rise, you will be helping stop the plastic tide. You do, however, have to live within the UK.

Yes! Universities can sign up just as a regular community would, and work towards SAS Plastic Free Community Approved status. However, the Community Toolkit is adapted by universities to suit university life, so for example Local Governance is a resolution from the Student Union and also university management board. University outlets on site count as ‘businesses’, Community Allies would mean work within the Uni community to spread the word and also external community link ups to the local Plastic Free Community and other groups … and so on. As with communities, there is no set time commitment for a University to work towards becoming Approved, it is entirely voluntary and you can also retrofit existing work. If you are signing up for a University you will be put in touch with us so we can guide you through the process. Universities can also support their local Plastic Free Community as a ‘Community Ally’.

When you sign up you’ll be asked to select from the dropdown list of areas. Communities are generally defined by their local authority boundaries but we know that community identity is important, so you can sign up for more than one and combine areas if you need to. We recommend that you start small and build up! Large communities such as counties or cities who want to gain accreditation will need to break the area down into smaller areas and roll the toolkit out across the whole area to achieve status. If you are signing up for a larger area like this you will be put in touch with us so we can guide you through the process.

There are Five Objectives which you will work towards to attain the Plastic Free Communities Accreditation. This forms the basis of what we hope will be long term change in your community. The first thing to do is to check them out in the Community Toolkit. If you’re happy to go ahead and lead your community, then register with us and start making your way through the toolkit. How you choose to tackle it is up to you, you know your community best and how to engage with it.