pressrelease

Contact: Julie Meeks
Tel: 01527 597757

June 20, 2005

SUPPORT LIVE8 WITH CALL TO LOCAL ACTION

You can support Live8's call for sustainable action to help Africa without walking farther than your recycling bin. The more aluminium drinks cans and foil you can recycle, the more trees such as mango and acacia are going to be grown in the sub-Saharan drylands of Burkina Faso. A new appeal to boost recycling means that a tree will be grown in the UK or Africa for every tonne of aluminium recycled across the UK until September 2006, with a target of 50,000 trees.

Soil erosion, bush fires, firewood cutting and clearance for agriculture are all threats to the sustainability of the ancient Gabio Forest in Burkina Faso, and the five village communities it supports. The trees you help plant will be grown from seed in special nurseries as part of a forest management programme run in conjunction with Bristol-based charity, Tree Aid, and sponsored by not for profit industry organisation Alupro.

Species have been chosen for their food and medicinal uses - mango, cashew, baobab and acacia - and also because the flowers encourage the production of honey which is sold in local markets to generate much-needed income.

The tree-planting appeal has been started to boost aluminium recycling, which saves up to 95% of the energy needed to make new metal, each and every time it is returned for remelt. With new cans often back on the shelf just six weeks after you give the old ones for recycling, the energy savings quickly mount up.

"This appeal is an environmental winner" says the Local Authority Recycling Officer
"If everyone gets into the habit of recycling aluminium, all our residents could be contributing towards the 50,000 trees target, as well as making the massive long-term energy savings which are available."

ENDS