A CAMPAIGN to reduce the amount of “unnecessary” single-use plastics at venues and businesses in the city has gained widespread support.

The Plastic Free Pledge encourages organisations and individuals to reduce waste by using less plastic that can only be used once, such as plastic straws, takeaway food containers and coffee cups.

Traders and catering companies have backed the scheme, with more than 55 venues across Brighton and Hove signing up with the aim of limiting or removing these types of plastics from their businesses.

A spokeswoman for The Grand Brighton: “We were extremely keen to take the Plastic Free Pledge and since pledging have removed readily-available straws from our bar tops, as well as considerably reducing the use of plastic cups throughout the business.”

“As a gold Green Tourism business, we aspire to achieve continuous improvement in our environmental performance, trying to lead the way locally in protecting our environment now and into the future.

“As a large accommodation provider in the city, the environment requires consideration in virtually all of our activities and we incorporate environmental management into everyday business.”

Several pubs have pledged to reduce their use of plastics, with the Laine Pub Group signing up a number of its venues in the city to the scheme.

Other businesses that have joined the campaign include caterers Kudos at The Brighton Centre, the British Airway i360, Jamie’s Italian, Brighton Gin, Small Batch Coffee Roasters and Silo.

Only around 14 per cent of plastic packaging is ever recycled or re-used and like a number of other councils, Brighton and Hove City Council only has the facilities to recycle plastic bottles.

Recent studies also show that plastics are now present in samples of British tap water and present in a third of all fish caught off the British coastline.

Claire Potter, co-founder of the Plastic Free Pledge, said: “A recent report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation states that if we carry on in this throwaway nature, by 2050 there will be a greater weight of plastics in the ocean than fish.”

An online petition calling for the council to generate a report on the options for bringing an end to the use of single-use plastics has attracted hundreds of signatures.

Proposals to reduce the use of these plastics will be heard at a full council meeting next Thursday.