DORCHESTER has taken another step towards reducing the amounts of single use plastic in the town.

Town councillors backed the idea at a meeting on Tuesday evening – picking up on a campaign started by teacher Edd Moore and pupils at Damers School.

The town council’s policy committee was warned that the idea of the council cutting out single-use plastic might be more difficult than envisaged.

It would include stopping the use of single use plastics at the town council offices in North Square and the adjoining Corn Exchange complex, as well as at the many parks, gardens and play areas run by the town council in addition to its sports areas and depots.

Contractors and traders who use council-owned buildings will also be expected to comply with the rules if the idea is eventually adopted by a full meeting of the council. It could also affect traders at music and other events in the Borough Gardens and Maumbury Rings.

The idea was unanimously supported at the policy committee with a round of applause for Mr Moore and the work of the school for setting the town off on the eco-path.

Locally Ferndown, Broadstone and Charmouth are working towards becoming a plastic free community with Wimborne and Lyme Regis already having achieved that status.

Mr Moore told councillors that all the other schools in Dorchester and more than three hundred business had now been written to by the children asking them to follow the school’s example and also become plastic free. He said he had been encouraged by Dorchester Business Improvement District (BID) backing the initiative and offering staff at businesses who signed up a free re-usable bottle and cup. MP Sir Oliver Letwin has also visited the school to see how he could help.

Committee chair Cllr Stella Jones said the town should take the lead and encourage others to follow: “We’ll have a big job to do – but I’m sure we will do it,” she said.

Cllr Molly Rennie said she hoped the campaign would also involve the Dorset Waste Partnership and spreading knowledge about what could be recycled and what could not, as well as stopping using plastics in the first place.

Cllr Tim Harries said that public events in the town’s parks and open spaces often resulted in lots of plastic rubbish being left behind: “ We have a lot of events at Maumbury Rings and the Borough Gardens so it will need a lot of liaison with suppliers if we are to do this,” he said.