The television advertising campaign was run last Christmas in part of the Midlands. Research carried out since then for the Warwickshire-led Midlands Consortium by consultant Continental Research resulted in a significant increase in non-recyclers claiming they would consider recycling in the future. And, it also found a good awareness of the advertising campaign.
Long-term
The campaign was part of a long-term objective to encourage a change in behaviour amongst the target audience and to increase the number of people recycling in the region.
Before the advertising campaign, the researchers found that about 53% of residents said they were “not at all likely” to recycle. This figure fell to 23% post-campaign. And, the “likely to recycle” figure rose from 30% to 50%.
 Christmas family scenes featured in the advertisement |
The campaign was supported in a number of other ways with promotion schemes from Warwickshire and councils including North Warwickshire Borough Council, Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council, Rugby Borough Council, Warwick District Council, Nottingamshire, Herfordshire, Lincolnshire and Stratford District Council. Total cost was 84,000 with each authority putting in up to 3,000.
Now the authorities are hoping that the campaign will be one of the factors that help them to reach an overall 20% recycling target for household waste in 2003/04. The figure, which is part of a Public Service Agreement, stood at 19.2% at the end of 2003 and an audit of the data is currently underway.
Bonus
Cllr Ken Browne, Warwickshire's portfolio holder for transport, environment and rural affairs, said earlier this year: “If we achieve the 20% recycling figure, then the Government will give the county a 750,000 bonus, which will be spent within the county. To achieve our target we need to recycle 56,000 tonnes of our waste based on our forecasted outturn of waste. We expect to achieve 54,610 tonnes, so to achieve our target, if every resident within the county just recycles the equivalent of 2 extra kilos, and we have no further growth in waste, we will hit our target.”
He told residents: “Go on – do your bit, and recycle it – and bring some extra funding into the County.”
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