Recycle Week: WRAP heads to Downing Street

The letter calls for the prime minister to draw attention to five items which can often be recycled but end up in residual waste streams – yoghurt pots, cleaning product bottles, aerosols, toilet roll tubes and aftershave and perfume bottles.

Joining the delegation was TV presenter and Recycle Week ambassador JJ Chalmers.

WRAP has calculated that one billion of these items are disposed of incorrectly ever year.  

Additionally, research from Recycle Now found that while 88% of people in the UK regularly recycle, 79% put one or more items into the bin that could have been recycled.  

A “Recycle Me” campaign has been created to address the issue with the target items brought to life through colourful characters. WRAP has made several assets available for councils to use to support the campaign.

WRAP CEO Harriet Lamb said: “We’re a nation of recyclers with eight out of 10 UK households regularly recycling, but we need to do so much more to rescue items from the main rubbish!  

“Too often we’re putting goods such as deodorant cans, yogurt pots or cleaning bottles in the rubbish when they can in fact be recycled. The more items we rescue from the main bin, the less goes to landfill and incineration, the more we reduce our impact on the climate.

“This Recycle Week we urge every household, business, school and organisation to help rescue more items from the rubbish bin so that we can achieve a world where ‘landfill’ becomes little more than a memory, where we are recycling everything possible – and of course reducing the amount we use in the first place.”

Chalmers added: “We can all play our part in tackling climate change. Recycling at home is a simple way to get involved and make a big difference.  We need to move from a take-make-dispose model to a make, reuse, reuse, reuse approach.  

“I am working with the Recycle Now team because I really want to encourage people to look at the packaging labels on every item to see if they can rescue and recycle the item. Many more household items can be recycled, and it just takes a second to check.”