Town centre traders are finding ways of encouraging customers to be more careful about what they carry as shoppers become more environmentally aware.

Julie Hobson, of Choice News in John Street, said the newsagent had drastically cut down on the number of new bags they got through after introducing a 5p charge for charity and collecting customers’ own bags for recycling.

Since launching the initiative on April 1, she said they had only been asked for 17 new bags when they would normally get through about 200 a month.

“People are taking it on board,” she said. “The 5p is to discourage people, not to raise money for charity or cover our costs. If we get recycled bags and people ask for them, we give them out. And people are bringing them in.”

Mrs Hobson said she was aware of a lot of shops in Filey taking similar steps because they wanted to cut down on the amount of waste going to landfill.

Butcher Adrian Colling said: “I’ve just invested in some hessian bags with our own design which I’ll be selling in the shop. We just hope that customers remember to bring their bags out with them.”

Mr Colling said he bought 50,000 plastic carrier bags 18 months ago and the shop was now nearing the end of its stock.

He said: “Customers are always asking for carrier bags and we think it’s maybe not necessary. There’s far too many of them out there.

“When you think that not many of them get recycled, it’s frightening. You also look at the market leaders and they’re all doing this.”

Angela Cox, of All Seasons fruit shop, said she had ordered biodegradable bags and would also be stocking more “bags for life”.

She said: “There’s more and more people realising and using their own bags. I think 90 per cent of people are aware. Plus, we use brown bags.

“But, without a tip in Filey, it’s getting more difficult to recycle trade waste. I take brown boxes to Seamer Carr, but I need an extra van to do that and it costs more to get rid of. We need more recycling services here.”

Harry Briggs, Scarbor-ough Council’s recycling officer, said most of the council’s efforts so far had concentrated on residents rather than retailers, although they were always available to give advice.

He said: “There’s no resources from the authority to tackle the issue of sustainability, but hopefully this will change and it’s something we will be looking at towards the summer.

“It’s fantastic what people are doing themselves – and this is where it’s worked nationally, so it’s a community rather than a council decision.”

Mr Briggs said the council was working on setting up a partnership with a local company to offer commercial recycling services, which would benefit businesses in Filey if the demand was there.

The council is also looking at the logistics of setting up a recycling facility at Filey Country Park, he added.

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