About Morsbags

A Letter from Pol

A young female minke whale was washed up in Normandy, France, on April 6th (my birthday), 2002. These were the contents of her stomach:

• 1 plastic-aluminum crisp packet
• 2 English supermarket bags
• 7 various colored dustbin bag bits
• 7 transparent plastic bags
• 1 plastic food wrapper

Plastic bags in water are serial killers. They are eaten by marine wildlife, which often mistake plastic bags for jellyfish. The fish, whale turtle or bird dies and decomposes around the bag. The bag floats off, ready for its next victim.

No one knows how long these treacherous plastic bags take to biodegrade. Humans have only been using them for 30 years, but they're already covering the planet and globally we consume 1 million plastic bags per minute. They photodegrade (break down into smaller and smaller toxic bits) and wildlife accidentally ingest the bite-sized pieces.

I created Morsbags in January 2007 because I live on a canal and endless plastic bags float by like urban jellyfish. I grew up on the coast of devon where the beaches were and still are strewn with plastic bags.

Whenever I am in a supermarket, I am boggled by the staggering amount of plastic bags being freely offered to shoppers who habitually forget that they are not the only option

I would love it if people would think to bring reusable bags.

This is my plan.

--Pol Morsman
founder of Morsbags.com

Aims and Methods

Aims

• Make reusable bags, sociably!
• Reach targets in order to make it worth distributing them guerilla-style and free to shoppers.
• Make it a habit* to take a morsbag or reusable bag to the shops.
• Accelerate the reusable bag campaign where supermarkets are dragging their feet/
• Do something positive to prevent more marine wildlife from dying with plastic bags wedged in their guts.

* Just like teeth brushing, only less toothpaste involved.

Ingredients

Sparkly people = a pod
Wine/refreshments
Old duvet covers, curtains, fabrics from charity shops
Scissors
Sewing machine
Iron
Gathering place

Method

It's all about having a group of friends around to chat whilst simultaneously making shopping bags out of old duvet covers, etc, to distribute en masse to shoppers to help protect marine wildlife.

Morsbags are fully recycled, fun and easy to make (see our pattern), washable, portable, foldable, unique, cheap, biodegradable and reusable.

Hopefully, when enough people get involved, there'll be an element of competition between the different bag-making pods to create extra impetus.

When enough morsbags have been made, pods hand them out to happy and surprised shoppers heading into their local supermarket. Hurrah!