A giant rainbow made from over 2,500 drink cans has appeared in Piccadilly Gardens to promote recycling on World Environment Day this weekend.
Every Can Counts and Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) are encouraging everyone to recycle their drink cans in the 750 recycling bins across the city.
Reps are also traversing the streets with giant can-shaped backpacks, collecting empty drinks as part of the campaign.
“Our key message is that metal recycles for ever,” Every Can Counts rep Jordan Croft told The Manc.
“Recycling is such an important cause and one we’re all really passionate about.”
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Every Can Counts reps with the rainbow
The multicoloured rainbow is made up of thousands of cans – celebrating key workers, the NHS and Pride. It’s travelled all the way from Brighton as part of Every Can Count’s international campaign to promote recycling.
For the weekend, Manchester City Council has installed special gold recycling bins across the city, reminding everyone to recycle their cans instead of throwing them away.
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There are also two competitions to enter. Take a photo next to the rainbow and tag Every Can Counts on social media to be in with a chance to win £250 shopping vouchers. The reps will also be doing a short survey on recycling habits and by answering some questions you’ll be entered into a £100 prize draw.
According to Every Can Counts’ research, people in Greater Manchester fail to recycle nearly 1.5 million drink cans every year. If those cans were recycled, it would be the equivalent of taking almost 4,000 cars off Manchester’s roads for a week (in greenhouse gas savings).
Recycling bin allocated for drinks cans
“It’s all about inspiring people to do the right thing by raising awareness of recycling,” Every Can Count’s Programme Leader Chris Latham-Warde said.
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“In conjunction with World Environment Day on Saturday, we thought it would be a great opportunity to get the rainbow out there, bringing some colour to Piccadilly Gardens.
“Everyone loves a symbol of positivity and there’s the message too that we all need to do the right thing and recycle.”
For more information about Every Can Counts, visit their website.
Featured images: Anna Willis
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Greater Manchester public urged to help get people ‘off the streets and on their feet’ before Christmas
Emily Sergeant
Locals are being urged to help get hundreds of people “off the streets and back on their feet” this festive season.
As the temperatures told colder by the day, and Christmas creeps closer and closer, Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity is bringing back ‘1000 Beds for Christmas’, and the massively-important initiative is aiming to provide 1,000 nights of accommodation to people at risk of homelessness before the big day arrives.
Forming part of the ongoing ‘A Bed Every Night’ scheme, this festive fundraising mission is designed to provide food, shelter, warmth, and dedicated vital wrap-around support for those who need it most.
The charity says it wants to build on the “incredible success of 2023”, which raised more than £55,000 and provided 1,800 nights of accommodation.
Stockport-based property finance specialists, Together – which has supported the campaign for the last two years – has, once again, generously pledged to match every public donation for the first £20,000 raised.
Unfamiliar with the ‘A Bed Every Night’ scheme? Since 2017, when rough sleeping peaked, the initiative has helped ensure a significantly-higher rate of reduction in the numbers of people facing a night on streets in Greater Manchester than seen nationally.
The landmark scheme has given people the chance to rebuild their lives, while also giving them access to key services and opportunities that allows them to stay off the streets for good.
Despite the scheme’s recent success, organisations across Greater Manchester are under “a huge amount of pressure” to meet the demand for their services this winter, and given the current economic outlook, household budgets will continue to be squeezed – leaving people on the sharp end of inequality and poverty.
“Help us be a lifeline to organisations on the frontline,” Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity urged in it’s public appeal for donations.
You can help make sure ‘A Bed Every Night’ is a reality for all by donating here.
Featured Image – EthelRedThePetrolHead (via Flickr)
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Former Manchester police officer jailed after sexually assaulting a child while on duty
Emily Sergeant
A former Manchester police officer has been jailed after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a child while he was on duty.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) explained that, on 29 December 2023, Dean Dempster was one of three officers responding to a domestic incident involving an adult and children, and it was while he was taking an account from a six-year-old girl, away from his colleagues, that he sexually abused her when he should have been there to protect her.
After GMP investigated a complaint received later that evening in relation to the incident, Dempster was immediately confronted by his supervisor when he returned to duty the next morning.
The 35-year-old was arrested that day by officers in Oldham, and then “relentlessly pursued” by GMP’s Professional Standards Directorate to “explore any further evidence of offending” in an investigation directed by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).
A former officer has been jailed for sexually abusing a child on duty last year.
Swift action from local officers made sure Dean Dempster never stepped foot in the community again.
Our unit for professional standards has brought Dempster to justice for his despicable crimes. pic.twitter.com/IN2HQOHQEw
A review of Dempster’s electronic devices revealed “further serious offending”, GMP revealed, including the making of indecent images of children.
Sadly, the police investigation also found images on Dempster’s mobile phone taken from his body-worn video camera at the incident in December 2023 of a second clothed child, and of another clothed child at a separate incident dating back to 2022 – with the victims of both families having been made aware, and kept updated throughout the investigation
Dempster was convicted and sacked “at the earliest legal opportunity” by the Chief Constable at an accelerated misconduct hearing in May this year, and he has since admitted six counts of making indecent images, and two counts of Misconduct in Public Office.
After pleading guilty, the former officer has now been jailed for nine years, and has also been ordered to sign the sex offenders’ register for life.
Deputy Chief Constable, Terry Woods, said Dempster “represents the very worst of society”.
“He is not a police officer, he is a child sex offender, a criminal, and he has no right to be near police uniform or serve the public,” DCC added. “Dempster was rightfully arrested and charged before he could ever work in our communities again.”
Anna Willis -
4th June 2021 
