Julie Hill, who was appointed chair of the resource efficiency body in October gave the preview at the annual conference of the Kent Resource Partnership (KRP) in Canterbury last week (March 12).
Ms Hill offered an update on the efforts to refresh the Recycle Now campaign which includes a range of free to use communication materials for local authorities and other organisations to coordinate recycling initiatives.
The campaign originally launched in 2004, with the help of around £10 million in support from the government and is now thought to have been used in some form by as many as 90% of the local authorities in England.
WRAP has been coordinating work to refresh the campaign since the summer, and expects to rollout a new set of materials and consumer messages later this year.
Trials of some of the new materials are to be carried out by Sheffield and Tunbridge Wells councils.
Much of the work has been informed by WRAP’s ‘Barriers to Recycling at Home’ report, published in December, which identified that many households are confused by plastics and food waste recycling (see letsrecycle.com story).
Barriers
Speaking last week, Ms Hill said: “We now know from our Barriers to Recycling report that communication is key to putting the right things in the right bins. That is essential to capture and quality. 75% of people are trying to recycle properly but only 25% of people are doing that all the time.
“Recycle Now has been one of WRAP’s key brands since we launched it in 2004 as a £10 million multi media campaign. That has been hugely successful and has supported local authority initiatives to encourage recycling. Nobody has the budgets to do that now so we have to be smarter.”
Ms Hill explained that the new resources developed by WRAP include a range of updated communications materials based on the research as well as speaking to focus groups about the recycling message.
She added: “The aim is to develop a ‘thank you’ type message with residents and it will focus on what can and can’t be recycled. This will be thinking about different rooms in the house, all of the areas that need attention, such as the bathroom.”
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