A group of local residents have worked for more than six months on a campaign to stop the use of plastic bags in the township.

Group initiators Amanda Lopez and Jannee Walsh said the group, Only One Earth, had already received an outstanding response.

“The Berry IGA supermarket has agreed to trial no plastic bags,” Ms Lopez said.

“It’s a lot harder than you think to start something like this, but the response from local businesses and residents has been very positive.

“What we have found to be the most challenging thing is re-educating people how to live without them because they no longer know how to get by without plastic. It’s quite sad.”

Ms Lopez said education was the key to reducing the use of plastic bags.

“Plastic bags haven’t been around for that long, but we so heavily rely on them now,” she said.

“It was about 20 years ago the large supermarket chains and other stores brought in reusable bags – to be honest we shouldn’t even have to do a campaign like this in 2014.

“It just takes encouragement for people to change their habits, like charging 10 cents for a plastic bag.

“When it hits the hip pocket, people find a way to get around that and will hopefully start to bring their own bags with them.”

Most people with whom the group has spoken said they only used plastic bags so they had something to throw their rubbish out in.

“People used to just put their rubbish directly into bins, or compost food scraps and so on,” Ms Walsh said.

“And if it was something that could leak it was wrapped in newspaper, that way when it’s in landfill it can decompose.

“Packaging is a huge problem – as well as plastic bottles. They will be our next target, but this is a start.”

Ms Lopez said stopping the use of plastic bags in Berry may be the group’s first interest, but they hoped to eventually stop their use across the Shoalhaven.

“The broader picture is environmental awareness,” she said.

“We will have a stall at the Berry Merry Christmas market on December 3 this year where people can purchase reusable bags and we will also be distributing information packages to help people learn about plastic bag alternatives.”

Australians dispose of an estimated four billion plastic bags annually which means over 10 million new bags are used every day.

Only One Earth members have been invited to Nowra Anglican College on Tuesday, November 28 to educate students about the use of plastic bags.