Warwickshire teams up West Midlands councils for television recycling campaign

At a cost of just over 3,000 per authority, Warwickshire has joined with Staffordshire, Shropshire, Birmingham, Coventry, Telford & Wrekin and Worcestershire to fund the 20 second long advert.

Young recycler Harry Konstanstis stars in the new advert

Warwickshire's Waste Wise awareness campaign, funded through Landfill Tax Credits from the SITA Environmental Trust, has led the advertising campaign after deciding that television was the best medium to carry the message to a broad audience.

The cost of producing a television advertising campaign was too much for Warwickshire alone, explained Katey Salmon, Waste Wise campaign manager for Warwickshire County Council.

She said: “We have used bus adverts in the past which have proved successful but we felt that television was a more effective medium for reaching a wide section of the population. However, we realised that advertising on television would be too expensive for the Waste Wise budget but that there was scope for inviting other local authorities in the region to join us.”

Production
TV broadcaster Carlton and production company Koala met with Waste Wise to discuss script ideas and the amount of airtime the advert would be given.

The production company then found eight-year-old Harry Konstanstis, from Birmingham, to star as a superhero boy in the advert, filmed at a location provided by Waste Wise.

Costs for the advert came to 21,200 in all, with 6,000 going to production costs and 15,000 for television air time. The advert will be screened from 19th March until 28th March, when it will appear just after that evening's Coronation Street for maximum exposure.

Councils will have their details on Teletext at no extra cost, and a number of authorities are said to be keen on following the campaign up with another around Christmas time.

The 'Rethink Rubbish' logo will be used in the advert, although the Rethink Rubbish campaign has not been involved in the project. The authorities involved decided that the logo would help raise awareness among viewers.

Warwickshire currently recycles around 15% of its municipal waste – up from 8% in 1999 – and has targets in place to reach 20% by 2003-2004 and 24% by 2005-2006.

Worcester
One of the districts whose disposal authority is involved in the television campaign is using the adverts to raise the profile of a new kerbside recycling service. Worcester city is to start its door-to-door collections in June 2003, and is adding to the awareness raising powers of the television advert with leaflets, newspaper and radio advertising and recycling events in April and May.

Funded with a 395,480 grant from the second round of the DEFRA 140 million fund, the new service is to be provided for 40,500 households, with the collected material will go to Severn Waste Services. The service will not pick up material from high-rise flats or city centre locations where trade waste is involved, although these areas may be taken on board in a “second wave” of the scheme.

A spokesman for the council explained: “Two sacks will be given to every household in the city, which will be collected fortnightly along with their rubbish. In the clear sack they will put in paper and plastic and in the purple sack textiles and cans.”