Environment

On Wednesday 25 September, Helen from the Furniture Poverty Hub is working with the Tree of Life Centre to promote furniture reuse and it is a good start to the day as the civic centre in Wythenshawe have given them a shop free of charge to run this activity. They have displayed some donated furniture in the shop window and the aim is to have a conversation about the links between reusing furniture and the climate. 

What has our consumer-led, throw-away society got to do with the climate emergency?
A great deal, as it happens.

On Tuesday morning, we visited Anson Community Grocers, a volunteer led project based in Anson House in the heart of the estate. Anson House has been providing valuable services for local people for the last 40 years, but three years ago Anson Community Grocers was set up by volunteers with the support of Healthy Me Healthy Communities.

EMERGE Recycling is an award-winning social enterprise, formed in 1997 in Manchester. Its name is an acronym of East Manchester Environment and Resources Group Emerge and it operates under its parent charity EMERGE 3Rs, which champions sustainability across all its operations.

On Saturday 21st September, Azuka and a group of young people built a wind turbine in three hours in Longsight from waste materials such as drainage pipes. This was part of a A2Z Renewable Development Trust programme to provide training courses on energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies and many of the young people came from across Greater Manchester including Oldham and Moston. Many had heard about it by word of mouth. Two weeks ago, they talked about a battery to store solar energy and the young people learnt how a motor works and how it generates electricity.

Saturday was a busy day for the Stitched Up Repair Cafe at their Chorlton HQ. This free volunteer-run event is on the 3rd Saturday of the month and anyone can drop in with their broken items to see if they can be fixed. On 21st September, they could help with fixing clothes, furniture, electrical items and computers.

“We aim to encourage as many people as possible to use the Fallowfield Loop and get people out of their cars, both for the environment and for their wellbeing!”
David - Friends of the Fallowfield Loop.

GMCVO are inviting expressions of interest to join a project in Greater Manchester that will support your organisation to be more energy efficient and reduce energy costs.

GMCVO are working with a collaboration of organisations from the public, private and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sectors on the ‘GM SME Zero Carbon Accelerator’ project, funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

Waste less, Live more is back.

This September, Keep Britain Tidy want to help you discover all of the simple ways you could make a #SwapForGood.

Keep Britain Tidy will be sharing the simple sustainable swaps we could all be making to help reduce single-use. Reducing our waste helps the environment and saves us money.

Groundwork in Greater Manchester and the Environment Agency would like to invite environmental volunteers to take part in a survey. This survey is for anyone involved in a local community or voluntary group including local charities, E-NGOs and community interest companies (CICs).

Are you a Manchester voluntary, community and social enterprise sector organisation? Would you like to share a story of your activity to tackle the climate emergency, as part of the 2019 Spirit of Manchester Story Week in September?

We are looking for 20 VCSE organisations to share their stories during the week of 23-27 September.