FOR the whole of this month, people in Tedburn St Mary are being challenged to think where they dispose of plastic, even go single-use plastic free.

To help drive the point home, pupils of Class Three at the village school have made an apple tree, a Tree of Life, completely of plastic. The tree has been put up in the centre of the village where the Christmas tree usually stands.

They said they had thought the sea was clean and clear and full of fish and were horrified to find how much plastic there was in it and facts such as it takes 400 years for a plastic bottle to degrade or 600 years for a length of fishing line, and even then it turns into microplastic. It never really goes away but can go into the food chain.

By now they were getting more than a bit worried about the situation, they decided to take a walk around the village to check, wearing protective gloves, and were quite disgusted to fill six black refuse bags with rubbish, mostly plastic, in only half an hour.

They then went to look from the flyover on the A30 and again, there was lots of plastic and other rubbish, scattered alongside the road.

"We have found there is a lot of single-use plastic such as cling-film. Even if you put it in the bin, it can blow out when the bin men collect, or can fall out,” said one of the pupils.

"We want to encourage people to stop using plastic. We have written to the parish magazine, the “Tedburn Times”, which published our letter this month, asking people to join us in our plastic-free month of April and to think wisely about their use of plastic in and around the house.”

They are experimenting with an alternative of material coated with a thin film of bees wax as a wrapper for food. This can be wiped clean and reused many times.

To emphasise their point, everyone in Class Three has helped to make the apple tree out of plastic bottles and other pieces of plastic.

They drew around their hands on to green plastic tarpaulin, cutting out the shapes as leaves.

The children contacted Tedburn Enhancement Group which gave its backing with Chris Gibbs helping by putting up posters to promote the plastic-free month and who is investigating the possibility of recycle bins just for plastics.

Class teacher Mrs Katie Skinner said other people involved in getting the Tree of Life in place included Friends of Tedburn St Mary School members with Tara Hyson, Karen Squibb, Dave Brewer, Luke Hyson, Sue Latham, Teaching Assistant Karen Scott and Crediton Garden Centre donated compost and flowers to go around the tree.

They chose an apple tree because apples have special significance for Tedburn where there used to be more orchards and cider makers.

It now remains to see if the enthusiastic pupils of Tedburn St Mary Primary School can encourage the rest of the village to think about how much plastic they use and what happens to it when they have finished with it.

Or to think about what school pupil Zara said in her letter to the “Tedburn Times”: "Feeling angry about the amount of plastic waste and realising Tedburn, and the rest of the planet, has a litter problem, I have decided to ask for your help to change the future of our village."

Facts about plastic pollution can easily be found on websites. One the school used was The Garnier Plastic Fantastic Education Team who included The Hard-to-Recycle Plastic Checklist and who say that by 2050 there will be as much plastic as fish in our oceans.