BASILDON council have joined an Essex-wide campaign on cutting out plastic.

The council have joined the 'Love Essex Not Plastic' campaign, which aims to tackle the amount of waste across the county.

It will launch on January 6, and wll highlight the issue of single-use plastic and urges residents and families to switch to re-usable options and to recycle more.

Throughout the year there will be easy swap ideas, such as ditching single-use plastic cups, bottles, straws and bags - switching to reusable ones instead.

David Harrison, an Independent councillor in Wickford, said: "Thanks to programmes such as Blue Planet II and Drowning in Plastic, we’ve all seen the devastating impact of becoming a plastic planet.

"2020 is a year of change and now it’s even more vital we all do whatever is necessary to deplete our reliance on single-use plastic. "If everyone in Essex used one less plastic bottle, we’d save 1.5million bottles alone."

If you want to be a part of the Love Essex plastic solution, take the Essex Plastic Pledge at www.loveessex.org/plasticpledge