Looking to the past for a plastic-free future

A PLASTIC awareness event will take place in Skibbereen on September 21st. 

In advance of the event, information is sought from the public on how they shopped in pre-plastic days, to inform how we can make positive changes.

Organiser Sonia Caldwell said: ‘We would like to know all about grocery shopping in the good old days, before everything was wrapped in plastic. 

‘We would like to hear the stories of the shops back then, the goods that were for sale (and how they were packaged) and the shop keepers who were wonderful characters in the social fabric of village and town life and look at new ways to marry the old ways with modern technology and enterprise to bring about a new plastic free future. 

‘In the spirit of the Folklore Commission of the 1930s we are inviting people to send a letter or note from an elderly relative or recording an anecdote or memory about how shopping for food was done in the old days, how we used to shop for food and what has changed in the type of food now purchased.’

Letters can be posted to Kilcoe Studios, Kilcoe, Skibbereen or emailed  to [email protected] before the September 10th. 

These letters will be exhibited during the plastics awareness event and will also form part of the launch event during the Taste of West Cork food festival on Thursday September 12th in the Riverside restaurant in Skibbereen.