Ely could become a plastic bag-free city with a new scheme called borrow bags.

The idea encourages local shops and businesses to offer customers strong, reusable, original, recycled and washable bags that will last for years, to reduce the use of plastic bags.

Globally more than a million plastic bags are consumed every minute by marine wildlife with devastating consequences.

Tracey Harding, tourism, town centre and events manager for Visit Ely, said: “This is a fantastic initiative and we really hope local people and businesses will become involved.

“We are extremely grateful to local shop Sew Much to Do for co-ordinating a series of group sessions which will kick start the project and make Ely another step forward to becoming a plastic-free city.

“Each bag is tagged with Visit Ely so they can be identified as we are expecting tourists to take them far and wide and will use #elyborrowbag to help spread of the word of our beautiful city.”

Borrow Bags is a community-based scheme where volunteers are invited to join in, either by making and distributing the bags, donating fabric or helping to spread the word.

The Ely Morsbaggers pilot is co-ordinated by Sew Much To Do which will also be running regular bag making ‘sewcials’.

Full bag making instructions and how to get more involved are also on the Visit Ely website.

Follow the ‘Morsbags’ pattern or let your creativity flow and design your own.

Each bag should carry the Ely Borrow Bag logo, a Morsbag tag and makers need to let organisers know how many have been made so they can update their tally.

Bag labels are available from either Ely Tourist Information Centre or Sew Much To Do, High Street Passage.

Staff at Visit Ely, based at the Tourist Information Centre, have already been busy, with the first batch of Ely borrow bags now available to visitors.

• If you would like to become involved visit www.visitely.org.uk or pop into Sew Much To Do at 7 High Street Passage in Ely. You can also join the “Ely Morsbaggers” pod at www.morsbags.com and make as many bags as possible to distribute locally. A target has been set of 500 by Christmas!