A major campaigner against plastic pollution has described its mission as “increasingly unsustainable” as it revealed plans to close.
Charity City to Sea said it was putting a full stop on a decade of high-profile activity in support of initiatives such as reusable packaging.
The body last year organised a letter signed by celebrities including judge Rob Rinder and astronaut Nicole Stott calling for tough new laws on reusable packaging.
Earlier this year City to Sea urged MPs to ban chewing gum containing plastics.
The body’s Refill app has been downloaded more than 750,000 times and prevented 100 million single-use plastic bottles from entering the waste stream annually, it claimed.
But the charity said last week that the “scarcity and competitive nature of grant funding” and “difficult economic times for corporate partners” had led to its decision to close.
Chief executive Jane Martin added: “We’re incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved over the past decade.
“But despite growing public demand for reuse, the reality is that underfunding, lack of enabling regulation and a system still optimised for single-use have made our mission as a non-profit increasingly unsustainable.”
