HELP VERDANT GO PINK FOR BREAST CANCER DAY

Gosport, 16th October 2009 – It’s Wear It Pink Day in a fortnight on Friday 30th October, and many bin men from Verdant, Gosport Borough Council’s recycling and refuse contractor, will be taking that message to heart on the national appeal day organised by the Breast Cancer Campaign.

On that day, Verdant business manager Ian Reck will be with the collection crews on their rounds through Lee on Solent and around the town area. It’ll be much like any other collection day – except they’ll be wearing an item of pink clothing or even sporting pink hair!

The pair of 26 tonne dust carts will be decked out with pink ribbons, as well as pink vinyl signage provided free of charge by Epic Media (www.epicmediagroup.co.uk).

Back at Verdant’s depot, staff will be giving their support by wearing pink clothing, as well as by asking all visitors and industry contacts to donate to the cause.

All participating Verdant staff will pay at least £2 to the campaign, and wherever possible, will Gift Aid their donations. This means the Government contributes a further 28p to every £1 raised in this way.

Ian said: “We’ll all have a bit of fun on Wear It Pink Day which will hopefully help raise vitally-needed funds for the Breast Cancer Campaign’s valuable research work. We all know someone who has been affected by breast cancer, so we want to help the charity continue its important research into more effective diagnosis and treatment.

“It’s estimated that one in nine women will get breast cancer in her lifetime, and around 125 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every day. So I’d ask all Gosport residents to please dig deep and donate all they can.”

A £2 donation buys 40 microscope slides, £5 a pair of lab safety glasses, £17 a protective lab coat, and £20 pays for 500 test tubes, while £100 buys the cell culture liquid needed to grow breast cancer cells.

Verdant crews will NOT be able to accept donations on their round but any Gosport residents wanting to support their pink efforts can make a donation to the Wear It Pink campaign by:

• Sending a cheque, made payable to Breast Cancer Campaign, to Verdant, Westfield Road Depot, Westfield Road, Gosport, Hants PO12 3RU
• Sending a cheque, made payable as above, to Freepost Wear It Pink
• Going online at www.wearitpink.co.uk
• Telephoning 0800 107 1304 to make a credit or debit card donation
  

For further information about Wear It Pink Day, visit www.wearitpink.co.uk.

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About Verdant

Verdant Group Plc (www.verdant-group.co.uk), part of the fast-growing, recycling-led Greenstar UK group (www.greenstar.co.uk), provides high quality, efficient recycling, refuse, cleansing and grounds maintenance services for 24 local authorities in England, Wales and Scotland. It makes over 55 million recycling and refuse collections annually from nearly 1.1 million households, and employs over 1,600 staff operating with 600+ vehicles. Hundreds of staff are participating in a government-backed skills and awareness training programme which leads to a recognised vocational qualification. Verdant’s Arun Green Waste Club in West Sussex won Best Partnership Project at the 2007 National Recycling Awards, and Verdant also won the Best Commitment to Health & Safety category of the 2005 National Recycling Awards.

For further media information, contact:

Blair Drummond, Verdant PR consultant – tel (m) 07798 686 217, email blair.drummond@btopenworld.com