MAY 2019
Working towards hosting the 1st Plastic Free Festival in GM

Envirolution Festival
A shining example of how large-scale events and festivals can be single-use plastic free and offer excellent food, drinks, 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.”
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.
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.
Website – www.envirolution.org.uk/
Twitter – @Envirolution
Facebook – EnvirolutionUK
On this site you’ll find lots of information, advice and guidance to help you reduce the amount of single-use plastics you use. We want to help you make the right choices – whether that’s choosing to remove some products (always the best option), choosing a re-usable alternative (next best option) or switching to easily recyclable items.
The first step is to sign our pledge and commit to take action to reduce avoidable single-use plastics across Greater Manchester. By making a commitment today you can help to make Greater Manchester one of the greenest UK city regions. We are always adding new content to our site so keep checking back for further information.