Hampshire’s busy bees helping us use less plastic

Hand-made beeswax sandwich satchels are being promoted as a reusable alternative to plastic.

They are the work of Mrs B’s Bees. Debbie Burton makes beeswax satchels out of wax from her very own Hampshire bees to encourage people to reduce their use of plastic wrap.

With the cost of dealing with all of the county’s waste now regularly topping the £100 million a year mark, Hampshire County Council invited local communities and organisations to tell us about their ideas for helping people waste less, with grants available to help kick start or expand their projects. There is so much going on at a local level and the County Council hopes to encourage those initiatives and inspire more.

Debbie was among those awarded a grant, which she has used to develop the beeswax satchels with their quirky, colourful designs, and she tells us more about it, “The grant is for the beeswax satchels which are bio-degradable, sustainable, eco-friendly and at the end of their life are compostable.”

“The inside is 3D, because we put sides and a bottom on it, and we coat it with beeswax mixed with tree resin and with a bit of natural oil. When you scrunch it together, it sticks to itself. You can even scrunch it right up and it still sticks to itself, but unlike plastic wrap, it unwinds, and you can use it again and again.”

The Community Grant Fund builds on the progress of the Smart Living initiative to encourage people to make small changes to their lifestyle which could lead to bigger savings.

We were really impressed with the innovative ideas that Hampshire communities came up with to help reduce household waste and we were delighted to be able to award grants to 15 different projects from all over the county. We’re looking forward to sharing more updates on individual projects as they get up and running over the coming months.

Find out all about ‘Mrs. B’s Bees’ by watching the video, below:

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