FEATURED | Popular Herefordshire Holiday Park in Eardisland gets Plastic Free Champion Award

Popular Herefordshire Holiday Parks Get Plastic Free Champion Award

Eardisland, the scenic stop on the Black and White village trail, is working to become a Plastic Free Community. Arrow Bank Country Holiday Park help them move one step closer by attaining Plastic Free Champion status.

Eardisland’s Arrow Bank Country Holiday Park is one of a family run group of three 5* parks in North Herefordshire/Welsh borders offering touring, self-catering and holiday home ownership.

They have been working with Eardisland Parish Council’s Environment and Sustainability group to reduce their single-use plastic.

To become a Plastic Free Champion Discover Parks identified the single-use plastic it used across all three sites and carried out three actions:

• Installed a Wholy Cow milk vending machine to stop the use of plastic milk bottles.
• Replaced single use laminated notices with weatherproof notice boards.
• Started bulk buying of eco cleaning products cutting out single use plastic packaging.

The business is now working towards the silver level award by looking to remove two more single use items from everyday use and supporting the annual local community litter pick.

Plastic Free Communities is a community network across the UK that’s tackling single-use plastic from the beach, all the way back to the brands and businesses who create it. It does not expect communities to be totally plastic free but aims to tackle single-use plastic items like plastic drinks bottles, disposable coffee cups, sachets, bathroom plastics, excessive food packaging and takeaway containers.

Glenn Jones, managing director of the family run Discover Parks, says:

“We’re thrilled at becoming Plastic Champions, it’s something we’ve been working towards as a tourist destination for some years.

“Caring for our local environment is paramount, we continue to hold David Bellamy Awards on all of our parks with ongoing initiatives such as installing EV charging points, increasing nesting boxes for bats & birds and providing wildlife hides so our visitors can record the wonderful wildlife we welcome.”

Ben Woodcock, coordinator of the Eardisland Environment and Sustainability Group says:

“Residents and visitors to the Arrow Bank Park are an important part of village life, supporting local businesses and events while enjoying the picturesque setting.

“Volunteers in the village work hard to maintain the local environment for everyone, so it’s great to have Glenn and his team support our aims of becoming a plastic free community.

“These changes may seem small but give an important wider message about how reducing our reliance on single use plastic has an impact on pollution and carbon emissions.”