Following complaints from local residents over the amount to rubbish left at last year’s Pride, a petition has been set up to scrap the plastic
A petition launched to make Brighton’s Gay Pride plastic-free has been signed by over 3,500 people.
The lead petitioners, Green Party members Carole Mortimer and Sarah Kingdom, pointed to how over 8 million tonnes of plastic finds its way into oceans every year.
Carole said, “The environmental impact of such festivals needs to be taken seriously as it of grave harm to our seas and is an unsightly inconvenience on our streets.
“We, the people of Brighton, sincerely ask you to take your responsibility as organisers seriously and to significantly reduce the amount of plastic waste generated by this annual festival,” she said to local paper The Argus.
“We value our sea for its environmental significance, the abundance of life in supports, the joy it gives us and the money it generates in our tourism industry. Beaches covered in plastic are a negative on all fronts.”
Brighton Pride responded by ensuring that they’re doing their best to implement a long-term plan.
In a statement, they said: “Pride have been working hard on ways we can improve sustainability at our managed sites. While it’s not possible to get rid of all single use plastic at our sites immediately, we have been working with our suppliers to create a long term strategy which works both for the event and the environment.”
They pointed to how they’ve insisted that all food trays and cutlery must be compostable, they have banned plastic straws from bars and replaced plastic cups with compostable cups. They also said that they will issue all staff, crew and volunteers with a reusable water bottle to encourage a more effective long-term strategy.
This comes after residents complained of the litter caused by last year’s event.
One local resident said to the Evening Standard that, “The atmosphere in Brighton last night was wonderful but I have to say, the amount of rubbish dumped on the streets was appalling.
“The pavements were swimming in bottles, cans and dumped litter,” they said.
The Pride event, which is the biggest LGBTQ event in the country, takes place on the 3rd and 4th of August.
