Christmas will ‘carry on’ in Staffordshire with help of plastic bags

A Christmas tree made of plastic bags has saved a Staffordshire town from going without this year after a lack of funding meant it couldn't have a real one.  

The 20ft tree in Meir is made from 5,000 carrier bags and is decorated with ‘plastic bag baubles’ made by local children.

The ‘Consumerist Christmas Tree’ is a replica of the one reported on by BP&R last year in Durham, which was part of the city’s ‘Lumiere Festival’ and aimed to highlight the environmental issues around littering and a throwaway society.

The tree is made from carrier bags donated by the Meir community and is the centerpiece of the town’s decorations. It has, however, been met with mixed reactions from locals, with some onlookers telling the Stoke Sentinel newspaper that it is “a fantastic use of plastic”, with others denouncing the tree as “a load of rubbish.”