Welcome to February's newsletter.

Our big event this month is our 10th annual Seed Share which is being held from 11am to 2pm at the Boniface Centre on the 24th February. We have a bigger venue which means we have lots more stalls including Orchards Live, Medicinal Forest, Bees, Devon Wildlife Trust, Crediton Garden Centre, Crediton Pig Club, Celebration of Soil Composting, Fairtrade, Crediton Garden Club, Organic Art, RSPB, Sustainable Crediton, Plant stall, Children's Activities, Apple Grafting and other demonstrations. We will be serving delicious lunches, all from surplus food donated by local businesses. Music will be provided by the Woodmen band. Please do come along and support this event which takes our volunteers a huge amount of effort to organise.

There is a lot of emphasis in this newsletter on plastic. We have two petitions to sign requesting supermarkets reduce the amount of plastic packaging, one from Avaaz and one from Greenpeace. Also our Waste Action Group members have been out and about in Crediton signing up businesses for the Refill scheme. There are now nine places in Crediton where you can take your refillable water bottle to get it refilled free of charge. See the full article for more details.

Finally, if you are really passionate about reducing your own use of plastic packaging, then remember that there are shops in Crediton that will provide your fresh produce not packaged in plastic. Also the Green House provides a wide range of cleaning fluids, shampoos and conditioners etc in refillable containers. Many of their dry products are packaged in fully biodegradeable packaging.