A St Albans environmental campaign group is holding a prize draw in honour of Plastic Free July.

Herts Advertiser: Plastic Free St Albans is giving away a reusable water bottle in a prize draw as part of Plastic Free July. Picture: Plastic Free St AlbansPlastic Free St Albans is giving away a reusable water bottle in a prize draw as part of Plastic Free July. Picture: Plastic Free St Albans (Image: Archant)

Plastic Free St Albans is encouraging people to visit local businesses which offer free tap water refills and discounts on coffee for those with reusable cups.

To enter the prize draw, participants can download the Refill app and use it to log themselves refilling their own water bottles in locations around St Albans.

They can also take photos of themselves refilling their water, buying coffee in a reusable cup, drinking coffee in a café rather than getting a takeaway cup or bringing their own coffee from home, and send them to the group.

The winner will receive either a Refill-branded 500ml Chilly's water bottle or a 340ml Chilly's coffee cup in matte blue, depending on whether they refill their water bottle or avoid single-use plastic coffee cups.

Herts Advertiser: Plastic Free St Albans is giving away a reusable coffee cup in a prize draw as part of Plastic Free July. Picture: Plastic Free St AlbansPlastic Free St Albans is giving away a reusable coffee cup in a prize draw as part of Plastic Free July. Picture: Plastic Free St Albans (Image: Archant)

Plastic Free July is a global movement that urges people to avoid single-use plastics.

St Albans MP Anne Main has also been campaigning against plastic waste, and spoke in Parliament following an e-petition, signed by 100,000 people, which called for the eradication of unsustainable packaging.

She said: "St Albans cares deeply about environmental issues and I am grateful to the 464 people from St Albans who signed the petition. As a society, we cannot turn back the clock. What we need is to minimise waste from plastic by reusing it wherever we can and ensuring that we don't have a throwaway commodity."

Last week Mrs Main also chaired a meeting of the cross-party group on preventing plastic waste, inviting representatives from Starbucks to attend and set out what action they are taking to change customer behaviour.

She said: "The UK's coffee culture continues to grow and that means thousands more takeaway coffee cups going into landfill every day. Starbucks, by combining with other coffee shops, can make a real difference."

Both Plastic Free St Albans prizes will be drawn on Thursday, August 1.

Entries should be sent to plasticfreestalbans@gmail.com, to @plasticfreesta on Twitter, @plasticfreestalbans on Instagram or to the Plastic Free St Albans Facebook page.