This year, Recycle Week turned 23. What began as a national awareness week is all grown up and has become the UK’s largest annual recycling campaign, led by Wrap through the Recycle Now brand and delivered in partnership with Defra, Daera, local authorities, waste management organisations, businesses and communities across the country.
Like anyone turning 23, it’s changed a lot along the way. Not least the name itself, which morphed from The Big Recycle in 2004 to the now familiar Recycle Week. And for the first time this year, the campaign included food waste recycling alongside dry recycling.
In England, Simpler Recycling policy is making the recycling system more effective, but Wrap’s research shows that people are still sceptical about recycling and that doubt is on the rise.
What’s more, lots of Recycle Week’s younger audiences – who are coming of age in a world dictated by algorithms and where facts are harder to detect than ever – are less likely to think recycling is worthwhile than older people.
Despite this challenging picture, however, there is hope. That same research identified the themes that are most effective in giving citizens confidence that their recycling efforts make a difference. The message is clear – people want to know more about what happens to their waste once it leaves the kerbside or is taken to a takeback scheme. And they want proof points and good news stories to back it up.
Recycle Now has been consistently guided by that insight – seeing waste through the eyes of the public and attempting to shine a light on the recycling journey that seems so elusive to many. And this year, Recycle Week helped bring people together around the same principle. Hundreds of local authorities, businesses, charities, NGOs and community organisations got involved and the ask was simple – don’t just tell people to recycle, show them why they should.
Recycling can seem complicated and inaccessible for the general public. The solution isn’t to keep it behind closed doors, but to communicate it simply, make it engaging and thank – and sometimes reward – those who are doing it. Businesses play a key role in this: from Boots using it as a platform to highlight its rewards system and remind people of the tangible benefits of in-store recycling scheme, to brands showcasing recycled materials in their packaging.
With more exciting change on the horizon – including developments to packaging EPR and the introduction of the deposit return scheme – now is the time to engage people with it and show the public why recycling is worth it.
Lucy Graham is marketing manager at Wrap
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