Press Release: GLMCC is going GREEN this Ramadan!
05 May 2019
PRESS RELEASE
Green Lane Mosque and Community Centre is going GREEN this Ramadan!
“…And waste not by excess: for Allah does not love those who waste (by extravagance)”
Surah Al-An’aam, Ayat 141.
During past years, GLMCC has always distributed plastic water bottles to the congregation every night of Ramadan. This creates an incredible amount of plastic waste, to the point that we are continually hiring skips over Ramadan to remove the huge amount of empty water bottles.
This year, we have teamed up with ecobirmingham to consider how we reduce our environmental impact.
At our ‘Community Action Day’ last month, Michael Addison – Director of ecobirmingham, spoke passionately about the harms of plastic waste and the need for communities to do more:
“The UK uses 13 billion plastic bottles a year and 7.7 billion of those are water bottles. Over half the plastic bottles we use are not recycled. They end up in landfill or as litter or waste in our streets, canals and rivers. Some are incinerated producing 233,000 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide per year. Plastic bottles comprise one third of all plastic pollution in the sea and there are now 159 plastic bottles on average on every mile of beach in the UK.”
Over Ramadan, Green Lane Mosque and Community Centre is visited, on average, by over 3,500 people every night and over 5,000 people on the weekends and busier nights. This doesn’t include the 300 to 400 people that are also fed every night during iftar, when opening their fast. We estimate that we distribute an average of 800 to 1,000 bottles every evening in Ramadan. This generates a shocking amount of plastic waste.
With this in mind, we have taken the decision not to issue plastic water bottles to our congregation this Ramadan. Instead, we have purchased reusable bottles that we will be selling at a subsidised cost to the congregation. We will also be installing water fountains to act as filling stations.
There are already 226 refill stations across Birmingham and the ‘Refill Birmingham’ campaign is seeking to at least double that over the year. So, people can continue to refill their re-usable bottle around Birmingham and continue to benefit the environment after Ramadan too.
With over 4,000 attendees every night over Ramadan, we are also encouraging people to car-share when driving to the mosque to reduce our carbon footprint.
Please support our campaign to reduce plastic waste. As Muslims, we have a responsibility to care for our environment and reduce any harmful damage.
For further information about the harms of plastic, please visit the following sites:
https://plasticoceans.uk/the-facts/
https://www.sas.org.uk/our-work/plastic-pollution/plastic-pollution-facts-figures/
http://www.innovation-supplies.co.uk/plastic-pollution-the-facts/
http://ecobirmingham.com/
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Green Lane Masjid and Community Centre
20 Green Lane
Birmingham, B9 5DB
Tel: 0121 713 0080
Email: info@www.greenlanemasjid.org