Mail’s campaign against plastic triumphs at the Press Oscars
THE Daily Mail’s ten-year campaign against the scourge of plastic waste has triumphed at the annual Press Awards, regarded as the Oscars of British journalism.
Turn The Tide On Plastic scooped the prestigious Cudlipp Award for Campaign of the Year.
The judges said the Mail ‘put together a hard-hitting campaign that embraced the public’s growing concern about the ecological harm of plastic bottles and containers’.
They added: ‘The Mail maintained pressure and this year the Prime Minister announced a 25-year strategy to tackle plastic waste.’
This newspaper has led the way in reducing Britain’s use of plastic bags, after its Banish The Bags initiative was launched a decade ago.
It also succeeded in forcing action on microbeads, the tiny particles of plastic contained in many household products, and only this week Chancellor Philip Hammond announced a consultation into a possible levy on all single-use plastics.
The Mail also won Front Page of the Year for its ‘powerful’ response to the tragedy at Grenfell Tower last June, in which 72 people died. Our front page was filled with a shocking picture of the inferno with the headline ‘How the hell could it happen?’
The Society of Editors National Press Awards judges said: ‘The winner nailed it by asking the question that was on everyone’s lips the morning after the Grenfell Tower tragedy. It was a powerful and shocking front page.’
The Mail was also highly commended for Sports Team of the Year. Simon Walters, political editor at our sister paper the Mail on Sunday, was named Political Journalist of the Year.
EARLIER this month, the Daily Mail stopped wrapping Saturday’ s Weekend magazine in polythene as part of its Turn The Tide On Plastic campaign.
The material was recyclable – but sometimes ended up with rubbish in landfill sites, so the Mail decided to stop using it.