Minister hails ten years of Recycle Week

Recycling minister Lord de Mauley has praised the impact of national recycling awareness campaign Recycle Week, now in its tenth year, while WRAP has dismissed doubts over the future of the scheme.

The initiative, which is due to begin on Monday (June 17), is set to turn its focus to recycling at home and away in 2013, with emphasis on recycling packaging, metals, plastics, textiles and food waste collections.

Recycle Week is coordinated and funded by the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP), which is currently under review by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) as it seeks to determine if the body provides value for money for the services it provides.

Funding for the scheme comes out of WRAPs consumer engagement budget, with WRAP providing information and promotional resources for councils and businesses to set up local events.

Commenting on the initiatives ten-year anniversary, Lord de Mauley said that great strides had been made since Recycle Week began.

Progress

He said: Dealing with waste and recycling properly not only makes environmental sense but also good business sense. Weve made great strides in household recycling and over the next decade we can look forward to doing much more to reduce waste in the first place.

Reusing and recycling products and materials will also open up new avenues for UK businesses in growing domestic and export markets.

Launched in 2003 as The Big Recycle the annual public awareness event has spanned a decade that has seen a huge change in the UKs recycling landscape. According to WRAP, the UK has collected materials worth around 2.4 billion in the years since Recycle Week began.

Economy

WRAP chief executive Liz Goodwin, said: As a nation, weve come a long way since we first began to take recycling seriously.

This is good news for the environment it means were sending less waste to landfill and making better use of the natural materials that go into the products we use every day. It is also hugely important for our economy. The UK recycling sector now generates more than 13 billion a year in sales of recycled materials, employs more than 40,000 people and contributes around 3 billion worth of additional value each year to the UK economy.

Given this progress, you may be asking whether we still need Recycle Week. The truth is theres still more we can all do to recycle more things, more often to capture more of the valuable materials that are collected for recycling in our own area.

Recycle Week 2013

Councils, businesses and voluntary organisations across the UK are gearing up to take part in next weeks campaign, with a number of events planned to raise awareness about recycling.

These include the Oxfordshire Waste Partnership, which is inviting volunteers and community groups to visit waste management facilities throughout the county to see what happens to their waste, as well as organising a series of recycling roadshows where recycling officers will be giving out advice to residents.

In Westminster, council recycling officers will also be engaging with householders, with the officers taking to the streets to answer questions on recycling, and on the boroughs ongoing consultation on waste and recycling services which runs until July 26.

Meanwhile in Manchester, Recycle for Greater Manchester a partnership between Viridor Laing (Greater Manchester) Limited (VLGM) and the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority (GMWDA) is encouraging residents to recycle broken and unwanted electrical items as part of its Recycle Week activity.

Skip hire and waste management firm Powerday has teamed up with housing developer Barratt Homes to help spread the recycling message during the week, with plastics recycling initiatives at 14 schools close to Barratt Homes sites set to take part.