Hubbub and bottled water group launch grants to tackle ‘out-of-home’ recycling

The new #InTheLoop grants will prioritise locations with a high footfall to help maximise impact.  As well as the funding, Hubbub will provide ongoing support based on the charity’s expertise and experience in delivering recycling campaigns.

This includes support with project management and design to help bring their projects to reality and to support their delivery.

Organisations such as local authorities, business improvement districts, shopping centres, major property owners and transport hubs are invited to apply. The application deadline is 1^st March 2024.

First trialled in Leeds in 2018, #InTheLoop is the UK’s biggest collaborative approach to boost recycling on-the-go. Subsequently, Swansea, Edinburgh, Dublin, Wimbledon, Telford & Wrekin and Lambeth have all run similar pilots, installing “bright, colourful and eye-catching” bins to make it as easy as possible for people to recycle  on the go.

‘Significant challenge’

Gavin Ellis, co-founder and director at Hubbub said: “Recycling on the go continues to be a significant challenge and in the short term we can’t just pin our hopes on DRS solving this problem as it won’t be in place until at least 2025.

“We need to deal with the here and now and the reality is we are throwing away a huge number of bottles and cans each year. More must be done to capture this material and ensure it is recycled.

“We’ve tested and refined #InTheLoop and in 2024 we want to continue to scale this, whether that is through organisations using our free resources, or investment from other producers looking to support future grant funds.

“With less than half of local authorities currently having on-street recycling systems, we’re grateful to Natural Source Waters Association for providing these two generous grants and look forward to seeing what impact these have on recycling levels in the winning areas”.

Toolkit

The campaigns will have access to the #InTheLoop toolkit which was funded by environmental compliance scheme Ecosurety and brings together key learnings and insights gathered from these trials and aims to act as a blueprint for the winning projects.

The online toolkit provides free-to-use assets, with the grant funding intended to provide organisations with the vital funding needed to scale up their campaigns, with many local authorities under increasing financial pressure.  Since the toolkit launch in October 2022, six new campaigns have launched with support from the similar grant funds, in Bristol, Adur & Worthing, Derby, Bury, Ipswich and Ashford, Kent.

Commodity

Anthony Walker, senior communications manager for Natural Source Waters Association, said: “Bottles and cans are a vital and valuable commodity, and we want these containers to be captured so they can be recycled into new ones.

“Producers are keen to make it as easy as possible for people to recycle the right things in the right places and #InTheLoop is a proven way of doing this. It improves both recycling rates and the quality of material collected on-the-go, helping these containers get another life, whilst also reducing litter.

“The next step in achieving a circular economy for bottles and cans is for aligned deposit return schemes to be introduced across the four nations of the UK, which is why we are working with UK Governments to make this happen.”