National landmarks to go green for Recycle Week

Other significant national landmarks will light up green throughout the week, including Blackpool Tower, Gateshead Millennium Bridge and Tower 42.

Resources charity WRAP, which organises the week, says it hopes other buildings will follow suit. Councils have been called on to light up buildings including town halls in green.

The London Eye went green on 25 September 2019 as part of last year’s campaign.

Craig Stephens is campaign manager for Recycle Now, the communications campaign led by WRAP to boost household recycling. He told letsrecycle.com: “We’re hugely excited about the 17th annual Recycle Week. Even with everything that has happened this year, people have continued to recycle throughout lockdown and beyond and recycling and waste workers have steadfastly continued to collect.

“Recycle Week 2020 is about thanking everyone for their contribution”

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Craig Stephens

“Recycle Week 2020 is about thanking everyone for their contribution, but also about looking forward to the next 12 months and encouraging more people to recycle more of the right things, more often.

“Local authorities, waste management companies and other organisations can help by using #RecycleWeek on social media, using the iconic Recycle Now swoosh alongside their own logo, posting content using the Recycle Week ‘Together – We Recycle’ theme, embedding the Recycle Now recycling locator onto their website and lighting up iconic buildings and structures green to show support during Recycle Week.”

Together We Recycle

Recycle Week 2020 is themed around thanking the nation for continuing to recycle despite the challenges presented by Covid-19.

Last month Recycle Now said it was “blown away” by the response to its call for commercial backing (see letsrecycle.com story). PepsiCo, Reckitt Benckinser, Ecosurety and Suez joined Sainsbury’s, Ocado, Co-op, Britvic, Highland Spring, Unilever UK and Ireland, Lucozade Ribena Suntory and Danone among those to support the campaign.

History

First staged in 2004, Recycle Week is the UK’s largest national annual recycling campaign.

Last year, Recycle Week was inspired by the Extinction Rebellion protests and the activism of Greta Thunburg and Sir David Attenborough, under the heading ‘Recycling. It’s in our hands’ (see letsrecycle.com story).

WRAP says last year’s event reached 16 million people on digital channels and 91% of people who saw the campaign said they recycled more than in the previous year.