Launched in September 2001, the Gloucester Waste Campaign is a partnership between the county's seven local authorities and the Gloucestershire Environmental Trust, which provided 450,000 from Landfill Tax Credits for three years of the project.
 One of the 'Get it Sorted' campaign's promotional posters |
The Get it Sorted campaign has used leaflets, posters, roadshows and advertising to drive home its message of waste minimisation and recycling, hoping to boost local recycling rates from 12% to at least 24% in 2004.
After reviewing their first year of operation, the campaign will look to tackle textiles and plastics, particularly difficult materials to collect.
“The current campaigns will all be ongoing next year,” campaign manager Natasha Poole told letsrecycle.com, “but we'll be looking to start a textiles recycling campaign and we're going to try and do a plastics campaign – we've had a lot of queries on plastics, but it's been very difficult to get plastic recycling going so far.”
Gloucestershire produces 260,000 tonnes of municipal waste each year, a figure that has been growing by 4% annually, and around 86% of household waste is currently landfilled in the county.
In its first year, the Get it Sorted project has launched a པ hour banking' campaign which encourages the use of bring banks for recycling, a campaign to recycle printer cartridges and mobile phones, a push to promote household recycling and a campaign for the use of re-usable nappies.
“We've been very active in getting information across to householders, running roadshows and events to promote the campaign,” Ms Poole said. “We're trying to get householders to reduce their waste, it's something that has to change in the way people live.”
In May 2002, the campaign began a pilot scheme with the Mailing Preference Service, to encourage 10,000 households to register to cut down on the amount of junk mail they receive. If the scheme proves popular, it will be expanded to other districts.
Click here to visit the 'Get it Sorted' website.
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