Brand new cotton shopping bags are being given away for free to anyone prepared to hand in their old plastic bags.
The special plastic bag amnesty is running outside the old town hall in Carlisle city centre between 10am and 3pm on Wednesday, August 23rd, and anyone bringing their old carrier bags to the stand will receive a re-usable cotton alternative.
The cotton bags will also be available at this weekend's Solfest music festival, near Silloth, where a special stand staffed by Resource Cumbria will be running a plastic bag amnesty and offering information and advice on the three Rs - re-use, reduce and recycle.
Resource Cumbria is the name for the partnership between the county council and the six district councils working together to promote the three Rs.
Plastic bags can be a particular problem because millions of them are given out in shops every year. Not only do plastic bags use valuable resources - up to eight per cent of the world's oil is used in making plastics - but disposing of them needlessly uses up resources and they can become unsightly and unwelcome litter blowing around our streets.
The amnesty is designed to remind people about the plastic bag problem and provide a re-usable cotton bag as an alternative to picking up handfuls of plastic bags on every shopping trip.
The amnesty is part of the Cleaner, Greener, Safer campaign which involves Cumbria County Council, district councils and Cumbria police and aims to make the county a better place to live.
Cleaner Greener Safer involves a series of initiatives aimed at improving the environment and making the streets cleaner and safer, including:
The plastic bag amnesty.
New promotions on kerbside recycling schemes.
A drive for the police's Streetsafe operation, where the public are asked about the threat of crime and what concerns them the most.
New initiatives to get Cumbrians composting more of their green waste.
Innovative ways of promoting fire safety checks in people's homes.
An update on the problem of abandoned vehicles in the county.
Street cleaning promotions.