THE latest aspect of a long term environmental project at Okehampton Primary saw school pupils engaging with the community at Waitrose.

The store recently invited pupils from Okehampton Primary to design a poster that encourages their customers not to use plastic bags. The winning poster was enlarged and put on display in the foyer along with a display that showed off some of the other posters. The competition winner Erin Whitton came to Waitrose on March 20 along with other participants to hand out Waitrose Bags for Life, and talked to customers about why it is important to decrease the amount of plastic bags we use in day to day life. Children were particularly keen to tell people about how leatherback turtles can accidentally eat plastic bags, mistaking them for jellyfish.

The competition was the latest part of a project teaching children about recycling, and specifically the overuse of plastic bags. The project led to the Keep Okehampton Tidy litter picks, which have cleared well over a ton of litter from the town. The town mayor Cllr the Rev Mike Davies has supported the project by helping to get the Keep Okehampton Tidy events started, and he also chose the poster competition winner. He helped children hand out bags in Waitrose.

Fran Rickwood, who has been supporting the 'Ban the Bag' project in school said: 'The children were a little reticent at first to approach the customers, but once they overcame their initial nerves, there was no holding them back.

'We are grateful to Waitrose who have been supporting our work on trying to raise the profile of marine pollution. The children received lots of praise for their work from customers and they walked back to school knowing they had got their message across loud and clear.'