WRAP data highlights scale of contamination

The data also showed that 57% households miss one or more items that could be recycled via their kerbside collection.

WRAP’s consumer marketing and campaigns manager, Craig Stephens, said in a blog for the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC) that the data highlights the importance of Recycle Now’s vision is to get people recycling the right things more often.

Recycle Week

This, according to Mr Stephens, includes ‘Recycle Week’, the charity’s campaign which aims to raise awareness and drive actual behaviour change to get more people recycling right.

Recycle Week has been taking place annually since 2004, with 2022’s campaign having taken place between 17 – 23 October after being postponed due to the passing of the Queen.

Recycle Now’s ‘Recycling Locator’ was described as the “key call to action”. It is the UK’s tool for checking what can be recycled at home and locally, Mr Stephens explained. He added that “the Recycling Locator searches give a strong indication that citizens who take the time to check their local services will go onto recycle more effectively”.

The results also showed that the initiative has brought together UK organisations around a central theme, with over 6,600 accounts having used the #RecycleWeek hashtag. They also outlined that Recycle Week 2022 had 11 sponsors, while over 10,000 campaign assets were downloaded by 5,091 accounts.

Behaviour

In terms of encouraging behaviour change in targeted materials, the results pointed out that Recycling Locator searches increased by 88% compared to the week prior to the campaign. And, there were 48% more searches than when the campaign ran in September 2021.

As a result of more awareness, the recycling of plastic bags and wrapping increased by 110% and toothpaste tubes by 3000%.

Mr Stephens continued that engagement via media resulted in a reach of 8.23 million people and encouraged recycling behaviour change. 3.7 million citizens said they did something differently as a result of seeing or hearing about Recycle Week, he concluded.