Join us, by taking that first small step on the green journey

THE Manchester Evening News today joins with publishers across the UK to urge readers to look after our environment.

By taking part in the #Do1Thing campaign, people can make a real difference by making at least one simple change to their lifestyles. We’d love you to take a look at our list of ideas, make a personal pledge and get involved.

We’re doing a few things of our own here at the M.E.N:

• Reducing and hopefully eliminating the use of single-use plastic in our building

• Removing plastic bottles from our vending machines and giving everyone a branded hot/cold cup for life to use instead • Changing the waste bins to ensure we can recycle and significantly reduce any landfill waste • Planning the installation of LED lighting within the building to reduce our energy consumption • Ensuring all our newspapers are printed using paper sourced from managed sustainable forests or recycling processes and any packaging we use in their distribution is 100 per cent recyclable

• Teaming up with Google and a Manchester school to raise awareness of pollution by installing real-time sensors to measure environmental data • And, finally, our team are joining me in taking on at least one of the personal #Do1Thing challenges outlined today on pages 4&5. For me, that means an end to disposable coffee cups and straws and no longer buying any products containing palm oil or excessive packaging

All our pledges are easily achievable and, collectively, they can make a big difference. If everyone boycotted palm oil and excessive packaging, manufacturers would change, too – and that could have a hugely positive impact in sustaining rainforests, reducing landfill waste and keeping our oceans free of plastic.

We’ll continue to raise awareness and we hope you will join us today to ensure we pass on our planet in good shape for future generations.

Kind regards,

Darren

Darren Thwaites Editor-in-chief Manchester Evening News