A SMALL part of Bournemouth town centre travelled down the rabbit hole with Alice in Wonderland to highlight a rising issue involving plastics - with a helping hand from a celebrity chef and a TV presenter.

Mad Hatter Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Alice Anita Rani were in Bournemouth Square filming for their BBC One documentary War on Plastic with Hugh and Anita.

The filming in front of scores of residents showed the amount of plastic inside tea bags and the use of plastic wrapping in supermarket sandwiches. No fewer than 60 large wheelie bins were stationed nearby to highlight the severity of the issue.

Felicity Rice, BCP Council’s portfolio holder for environment and climate change, watched filming take place yesterday and even took part in the tea party herself following an invitation from Hugh.

“Tea bags are a classic example of where there is actually plastic within the tea bag itself and every time we have a cup of tea we are pouring boiling water on to plastic, which does not sound very healthy to me,” said Cllr Rice. “There is no awareness on the packaging that you are drinking plastic. We need to make companies make tea bags without plastic in or use loose leaf tea.”