Envirolution Festival

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Envirolution is a volunteer-led, one-day festival held annually at Platt Fields Park in Fallowfield.

A shining example of how large-scale events and festivals can be single-use plastic free and offer excellent food, drink, activities and entertainment.

The festival celebrates all aspects of living sustainably. It’s free to enter and offers a wide range of workshops and activities for all ages to take part in from creating pop-up farms to fun environment-themed games

One of the key aims is to allow the diverse community of Manchester to find out about all of the great organisations, projects and services available that are working towards making the city a greener place to live, work and visit. The festival (usually held at the end of May/beginning of June) has attracted more people every year since starting in 2009.

In summer 2018, around 8000 people attended from across Greater Manchester and beyond. This number of visitors would usually generate a massive amount of waste from catering, drinks, freebies, etc, but Envirolution recycle and compost the vast majority of waste generated from the festival. Marketing Director Dan Gibbon-Walsh said: “We were proud to host GRUB this year who have a range of caterers serving amazing plant-powered (aka vegan) food without using any single use plastic. Cutlery and serving trays were made from alternatives such as wood, which were composted, and drinks were served in cans, which were recycled.”

Working together

Dan says “we are delighted to work with so many sustainable companies and organisations leading the way for change. Continuing to make new partnerships will only strengthen the movement for a plastic free Greater Manchester. We are all delighted to see there is a campaign for Greater Manchester to go single-use plastic free as well as a zero carbon target. This will lead to a healthy, green and thriving city-region and we are delighted to be a part of helping that as much as we can.”

In 2019, Envirolution will be working with the Plastic Free Greater Manchester campaign to host the city-region’s first official ‘Plastic-Free Festival’. The festival is scheduled for the end of May 2019.

Plastic-free, zero carbon movement

Plastic-free, zero carbon movement

The festival organisers are keen to keep expanding and to make new partnerships. They are excited to continue to work with GRUB next year, and also plan to make more of a general theme about a plastic-free, zero-carbon Manchester movement.

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Plastic Free GM

Greater Manchester has launched the first city-region wide plan to drive down avoidable single-use plastics!

PlasticFreeGM asks businesses, organisations and individuals to pledge to take action to reduce avoidable single use plastics across Greater Manchester. PlasticFreeGM works with campaigning partners to provide information and advice to guide more sustainable choices. A number of sector specific campaigns are taking off to offer relevant support and information on reducing single use plastics.

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Take action…

To make a big change, we must all take small actions. Becoming greener and making an impact is easier than you might think. We have put together a range of blogs, articles, toolkits and checklists to help you make a start.

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Kat Mulhall, Events Manager at Victoria Baths Trust in Manchester

Although becoming carbon neutral is important to our organisation, it’s a lot of work for a small team to put the measures into place. The Journey to Net Zero course has given me practical, step-by-step advice that has made it easy for me to lay the foundations for our organisation to be able to take action and achieve our goal of becoming carbon neutral.

Kat Mulhall, Events Manager at Victoria Baths Trust in Manchester

Kat Mulhall, Events Manager at Victoria Baths Trust in Manchester

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Ollie Birchall, Founder of Nutri Bar

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Rachael, Gronn eco-salon in Bury

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Kat Mulhall, Victoria Baths Trust, Manchester

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