Leeds United are helping to celebrate Green Football’s Great Save campaign at the match on Wednesday night, as Leeds United take on Millwall in the Sky Bet Championship.
The fixture will act as our Green Football Game, with the campaign running from Tuesday 11th March through to Wednesday 2nd April.
This year’s theme is focused on encouraging clubs and supporters to not just throw old pieces of kit or sportswear away, but instead look at the various other options available, whether it’s selling it, upcycling it and re-using it or you can simply pass it on to someone else who may need it or can make use of it.
Over 100,000 tonnes of sportswear ends up in landfills every year, which equates to 951 shirts per minute. Landfills produce huge amounts of methane, which is fueling climate change, and in turn climate change is threatening the future of football. There are likely to be 120,000 grassroots football matches called off this year due to flooding alone.
The club has signed up to show their support for the campaign this season, and hosted a special event at Elland Road recently with the support of the Leeds United Foundation and Leeds United captain, Ethan Ampadu, who has also signed up to be an ambassador for the sustainability campaign.
Over 50 youngsters were in attendance at the exclusive Mystery Shirt Swap event, taking part in an educational workshop around reusing and donating old kit whilst also learning the skill of how to sew from a professional, alongside receiving a special tour of the stadium and the chance to meet one of their footballing heroes.
Club captain and Wales international, Ethan Ampadu, said: "I think this is a really important campaign, something that you hear a lot about in the news and a lot of people are talking about it, so it's great that we can do things like this today to help teach the kids and myself, that can hopefully in turn help impact the environment in a positive way.
"Whenever you go somewhere and see kids enjoying what they're doing, enjoying learning something new like they've just been learning how to stitch here, it's always so nice to see the smiles on their faces."
The club also has donation bins located at Elland Road which can be found across from the East Stand, if supporters are able to donate any old or unwanted pieces of kit, or you can either post or drop any items off to a local Salvation Army charity shop or pass it on to family and friends.
Other options include using your favourite resale platforms to sell preloved kit, or you can look at repairing pieces of kit, because the longer you wear your kit, the bigger the difference you’ll make.
Green Football’s Great Save is hoping to unite fans, clubs, players, pundits, broadcasters, grassroots teams and schools to help tackle climate change and protect nature.
Supporters can all play their part, and if you have been able to contribute to the Great Save by donating, selling or reusing any kit, you can be entered into a prize draw with the chance to win lots of great prizes, just head to www.greenfootball.org.
