In June 2024, we marked the one year anniversary of Sheffield Action on Plastic. We want to say a huge thank you to the individuals and businesses who have supported us over the last year, particularly our amazing volunteers who without them we wouldn’t be able to do what we do.

We also want to say a big thank you to other amazing individuals, organisations and businesses in Sheffield: to all the litter pickers in Sheffield Litter Pickers, to all the Sheffield repair cafes and fixers fixing broken products, and to all the businesses who are actively making efforts to reduce single-use plastics in their business.

Read on to hear about our amazing successes over the last year:

Community engagement

Single-use plastic ban – We mobilised volunteers to educate takeaways and got on BBC Radio Sheffield – twice!

Our volunteers went out and spoke to Sheffield cafes about signing up to a Reusable Coffee Cup Scheme – with a lot of interest in the scheme

Month after month our volunteers are out engaging with the public at community events, informing people about plastic free swaps, getting them to sign our petition and spreading the word about our organisation

Recognition

We were nominated for Best Sustainable Business of the Year at the UnLTD Business Awards

We were chosen as a benefactor of an Earth Day fair at the University of Sheffield and our Chair, Greg, was chosen as Activist of the Month by the Sustainability Committee

We are being recognised as a great organisation by Showroom Cinema, who each year invite us to participate in relevant film screenings

Funding success and support from businesses

We have gratefully received sponsorship from TravelMaster and Gripple for our 2024 Plastic Free Markets

We received grants from both LUSH and the Social Enterprise Network SEGA programme to purchase more reusable cups including half pint cups

We are incredibly grateful for Steam Yard who stored our reusable cups for over a year, and to Thornbridge Brewery, who have allowed us to store them at one of their pubs

We have received incredible support from Sheffield Theatres who have washed hundreds of our reusable cups. With additional support from the Showroom Workstation

We have gratefully received support from Mark Smith, a mentor part of the Sheffield Social Enterprise Network SEGA programme

Our events and projects

We ran Sheffield’s very first Plastic Free Market with fantastic evaluation responses from both attendees and stallholders. We continue to move forwards with planning for our next market on Sunday 3rd November

Over the last year we have been able to hire out 782 reusable pint cups, 458 reusable wine goblets, and 33 reusable coffee cups. A special thanks to Thornbridge Brewery for hiring out 900 cups! We continue to receive enquiries about hiring our cups, including from most recently Whirlow Hall Farm