Old jeans and a torn curtain brought home the grand prize in “Come with a bag, save the hell!”

Wondering who to give your old jeans to or what to use the cat’s torn tulle curtain for? Every item can have a new life. And you can give it one. Why should you? Because life, called nature, will thank you and reward you for it. So it did with Diana Pindikova.

Parents of two teenagers and lovers of natural farm food, Diana and her husband have been attending farmers’ markets in Varna since the beginning. They always come with a huge canvas bag, which they fill to the brim with fruit, vegetables, cheese, cheese, milk… And so it was at the Sunday market in front of the Festival and Congress Centre this Sunday. Her husband was carrying the denim bag, and Diana was looking around the stalls when she stopped in front of the one of the “Come with a bag, save the ale!” campaign. Smiling and beaming, she handed over her coupon with 10 punched fir trees – a symbol of 10 fir trees saved for each day of shopping with a reusable bag.

Diana Pindikova is one of the seven winners of the campaign, which aims to reduce the use of single-use plastic, paper or biopolymer bags. She bought one of her first reusable bags from the Farmer’s Market on her first visit. And her denim one was a gift from a friend – an amateur tailor. If you think it’s not possible to shop for fruits and vegetables with just a reusable bag, Diana will immediately disprove you. She always uses two nets with twine ties cut from an old tulle curtain that her cat, perhaps not accidentally, rips. Diana’s stories are a symbol of how when you do good for nature, it pays you back in one form or another. Diana Pindikova’s denim bag brought her the grand prize from the “Come with a bag, save the fir!” raffle – the family visit to an eco-farm provided by Varna Farmers’ Market.

150 registered multiple bag visits! 150 firs saved! Seven market customers who became heroes of change! This is the summary of the “Come with a bag, save a fir tree” campaign, which was carried out by the Public Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development for 14 weeks.
Plastic pollution problems are driving more and more retailers to replace plastic bags with paper or bio-polymer ones. But… It takes 26 times more water and 40% more energy to produce a paper bag than a plastic one. The massive penetration of biopolymer bags is leading to the uncontrolled deforestation of large areas for biomass extraction.

Every Saturday and Sunday, every customer of the Varna Farmers’ Market, who shopped with a reusable bag, received a coupon with a perforated green fir tree – a symbol of a saved tree. When he collected 10 saved fir trees, he became a hero of change towards a greener future.

Seven of the Farmers’ Market – Varna visitors who collected 10 fir trees won a bag of delicious farm produce, and one won a family visit to a partner farm. Ivanka Dimova, Ivanka Todorova, Yonna Andonova, Nigreta Gocheva, Emil Boyadzhiev, Lidiya Petrova and Diana Pindikova are the heroes of “Come with a bag, save the fir”.

The prizes of the last two were drawn by lottery at the Sunday farmers’ market in front of the Festival and Congress Centre. The other winner at the end of the campaign, besides Diana, was 70-year-old Lydia Petrova, who went shopping with a reusable bag on wheels. Both her children live abroad. She knows from them that Germans shop mainly with baskets. That is why she does not consider it heroic to use a reusable bag at home. She deeply believes in the intelligence of the young and that kindness in people will be revived again.

Lydia Petrova.

Since when reusable bag shopping and why?

-Since a long time ago. Because I don’t like plastic bags – they make noise, they cut into your hands, not to mention the ecology…. Reusable bag is better.

Does everyone around you shop with reusable bags?

-No. Most use plastic ones.

What do you tell them? Are you trying to steer them towards cloth bags?
-I don’t impose my opinion. We are big people. We see what we’re doing. Everybody decides for themselves.
When you go shopping, does it often happen that you get products put in a disposable bag without being asked?
-Yes, everywhere they put the products in plastic bags. But I put them in my cloth bag.
And do your children use reusable bags?
-My son is in Germany, my daughter in Austria. They are also of the opinion that nature should be protected and they shop with cloth bags.
Where they live, is there a lot of shopping with reusable bags?
-Massively. And in Germany they mainly shop with baskets. It is rare to see a man carrying a bag that cuts into his hands.
What needs to be done in Bulgaria to start shopping this way?
-This is such a complex and simple question at the same time. So many things need to be done in Bulgaria for things to fall into place.
We have to start small…
– That’s right. Until one matures for the big things, one has to go through the small things. And who can teach him about them except family, school, friends. But don’t lose hope. It’s good that there are a lot of good parents and teachers.
A shopping bag needs to be used more than 120 times to neutralize its footprint on nature, said campaign coordinator Sabina Maksimova.

Let’s use one thing many times – that’s the key to protecting the environment and our own health, Sabina urged. Why not start with a reusable bag! Using it is extremely convenient, beautiful and above all very, very meaningful.
The “Come with a Bag, Save a Bag” campaign is implemented under the project “Improving Public Awareness of the Role of CSOs for the Community” with the financial support of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway under the EEA Financial Mechanism.