The government-supported campaign is using a host of national press advertising to encourage those householders who are willing to recycle to recycle “more stuff more often”.
Four-times Olympic gold medal winning rower Matthew Pinsent, CBE, was on hand to launch the campaign today, telling letsrecycle.com: “At the moment, the report from the recycling headmaster is 'c;ould do better' – we are recycling about 14% at the moment, we have to get that up to 25%.”
 Olympic legend Matthew Pinsent launched the national recycling campaign in London |
Mr Pinsent said the focus of the campaign was to show people that recycling is easy now that local authorities are putting in the infrastructure. He said that his own council in Hammersmith & Fulham had made it very easy to recycle with its orange bag commingled kerbside recycling system.
With his sporting activities taking him around the world, Mr Pinsent said he had seen firsthand that the UK could do much better at recycling. He said: “In Canada, where we were competing they were only allowed to put one bag of rubbish out, and that was ten years ago. It really made people think about what they were throwing away. Throughout Europe they are better at it than we are – and in Australia.”
Adding his support to the campaign, environment minister Elliot Morley said: “I firmly support this exciting new campaign which will help to raise public awareness about recycling. By taking part in recycling schemes we can all contribute to reducing waste, cutting the cost of waste management and securing environmental benefits for all.”
Adverts
Television advertising will form the backbone of the national campaign, with three different animated adverts promoting the recycling of cans, paper and glass by showing what products can be made from each material with the slogan “Recycling: the possibilities are endless”. Adverts featuring the other materials are expected later in the two-year campaign.
Produced by the Saatchi agency, the adverts have been voiced by comedian Eddie Izzard, who had suggested “Recycle or Die” as the campaign slogan, but was not taken up on the idea.
 The recycling adverts show how recycled cans are used  Click here to watch advert
|
The adverts will be shown on Channel 4, 5 and selected satellite channels as well as three ITV1 regions – Granada, Central and Yorkshire – until Christmas. After Christmas the adverts will be shown on all ITV1 regions.
Press coverage will continue in national newspapers, with a bias towards the weekend papers, during which time WRAP believes householders will be more liable to recycle. The national recycling week “The Big Recycle” will tie into the WRAP campaign in the week of October 18, and
Evaluation
WRAP is using market research firm NOP to evaluate the effects of the campaign. Having established a base line that about 45% of people are currently “active recyclers”, the campaign will now seek to raise that level by 10 percentage points.
Jennie Price, WRAP chief executive, said that the “acid test” for her was to get more people to recycle. If the campaign could manage to do that, she said the government might provide funding for it to continue past its initial two-year period.
She said: “It is reasonable to expect that if this is successful, the government would continue to support it, I would hope they will allow it to go on further. But, we've got to deliver results.”
Continued on page 2
Subscribe for free