Its intention to help capture 30,000 tonnes-a-year of aluminium beverage cans and 8,000 tonnes-a-year of steel beverage cans, was endorsed in England by former minister for waste and recycling Jane Kennedy in February 2009 (see letsrecycle.com story).
The Every Can Counts campaign is working with the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) and government-funded resource management service Envirowise Wales to roll-out the scheme in Welsh public sector organisations.
Envirowise is promoting the campaign as part of its public sector waste minimisation campaign (PSWMC), which is funded by the WAG and encourages sustainable waste management practices.
Under the arrangement, the campaign is trying to get all public sector organisations in Wales to work towards reducing waste generated as a result of their day-to-day operations.
Envirowise is managed by AEA Technologies and Serco Limited, however, a contract to manage the service is currently being re-let following the merger of existing waste and recycling programmes into one delivery body under WRAP in April 2010 (see letsrecycle.com story).
Campaign
Ms Davidson visited the offices of Identity and Passport Service (IPS) in Newport, South Wales on Monday (May 24) to show her support for the drinks can recycling campaign.
The IPS has adopted the Every Can Counts campaign to complement its existing recycling programme and encourage recycling among its 365-strong staff, with funding from the PSWMC enabling it to produce promotional material to share throughout the organisation.
Ms Davidson, said: “I am very impressed by the recycling efforts of the Identity and Passport Service and would like to congratulate the staff on their achievements so far.”
She added that the scheme exemplified what could be achieved by workplace recycling and said: “I hope their success will encourage other organisations to take their recycling efforts to the next level.”
Rick Hindley, of Every Can Counts, said: “The range of programmes we are now working with demonstrate the flexibility of Every Can Counts and how it can effectively increase the pro-environmental behaviour of employees. It's extremely positive to witness how the Identity and Passport Service is implementing the programme and to see it making a difference straight away.”
And, Ms Davidson said that the forthcoming ‘Towards Zero Waste' strategy, which is set to be published next month, would look to build on recycling away from the household in order to reach its proposed target of recycling or composting 70% of municipal waste by 2025 (see letsrecycle.com story).
She explained: “Later this spring I will be launching our waste management strategy ‘Towards Zero Waste' which will set out our ambitions of becoming a high recycling country by 2025 and a zero waste country by 2050. Dramatically improving recycling at work wll be key to helping us achieve these ambitions.”
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