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Today Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful launches its manifesto for the upcoming Assembly elections. The manifesto outlines specific proposals to help MLAs make improvements to our environment over the next five years. This year our message is simple; Better is Possible.

Speaking about the launch of the manifesto, our Chief Executive Ian Humphreys said;

“We want Northern Ireland to become a leader in fighting the Climate Emergency. Instead of feeling like this problem is too complex or impossible to solve, we believe that Better is Possible. We have made some important strides forward with the passage of Climate Change legislation but there is still so much more work to do. Our manifesto sets out some of the next steps forward.

"I would encourage all candidates to support our positive plans to help make a real difference. Better is Possible for Northern Ireland and our organisation is committed to playing its part to make that happen"

Read our manifesto below.

Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful has signed a letter with our partners Keep Britain Tidy, Keep Wales Tidy and Keep Scotland Beautiful to call for litter payments to form a key component of the UK Government’s Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy.

The signatories to the letter believe that the EPR scheme offers a meaningful chance to tackle the root causes of many environmental problems by fully adopting the “polluter pays” principle. This underpins the proposals by shifting the costs of pollution onto those who profit from placing large amounts of packaging on the market.

The UK Government, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland had proposed that under the forthcoming EPR system, producers would be made responsible for the full net costs of managing packaging waste, including bin and ground litter management costs.

Speaking about this issue our Chief Executive, Ian Humphreys said "In Northern Ireland, we have spoken loudly about the litter problem. It's costing us millions of pounds every year to deal with. Along with our partners, we believe that only with meaningful and collaborative action can we see a real improvement. That is why I am adding Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful's voice to this letter so that we include litter payments in EPR legislation to help support the costs of dealing with this problem"

Letter to ministers is attached.