Lewes Community Bag

Read about the Lewes community bag in Viva Lewes.

Today (July 3, 2007) sees the launch of the Lewes Community Bag. It’s made of Fairtrade certified cotton and is being launched by the textiles group of Transition Town Lewes, based at Gossypium on Lewes High St.

The bags feature ‘Love Lewes, Shop Local’ on one side and the logos of 20 local independent shops on the other. The graphic, of Lewes High St, was designed by local artist Julian Bell. Lewes Community Bags are being sold at cost, as a community service, by Gossypium to the local traders who will sell them at an affordable £3 a bag. The initiative was set up to help people move away from disposable bags and to promote the local economy. Gossypium has pre-sold this limited edition of 1000 Lewes Community Bags, and we’ve already got people interested in being involved in the second bag.

Gossypium is one of Britain’s leading independent ethical clothing brands and has led many of the High Street chains including Marks and Spencer into adoption of Fairtrade cotton. According to Abigail Petit, who co-founded Gossypium with her husband Thomas, ‘We’ve managed to unite 20 fiercely independent shop traders, ranging from newcomers such as Pen and Paper to well-established shops such as Kings Traders and core suppliers like Richards the butchers to trendy new shops like Oyster. It’s not easy being an independent trader these days but these shops all create Lewes’s vibrant local economy. Many of the owners live in the town, pay staff who live in the town and look after customers who live in the town.

‘We hope this initiative will support the Town Council’s aim to make Lewes plastic bag free, and we hope it will raise awareness of Transition Town Lewes as well as the need to help build our local economy through buying from our great local shops.’

Update

The Lewes Town Partnership has started work on a town trail, to involve information sheets on the history of shops up in their windows, and the first shops being invited to take part in this are the ones who supported the community bag.

Get involved: contact one of the Group contacts on the Groups page