WRAP targets contamination as Recycle Week kicks off

Climate action NGO WRAP’s delayed Recycle Week runs from today (17 October) to 23 October under the theme ‘Let’s Get Real’, targeting contamination to improve recycling behaviours.

However, plastics campaign group City to Sea has slammed Recycle Week as an exercise in “corporate greenwashing” due to the sponsorship of Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and McDonald’s.

To coincide with the week, the Recycle Now campaign, which is part of WRAP, has published the results of a survey of more than 3,000 people carried out between 16 March and 22 April. The survey showed that more than four in five people tried to “recycle items that should not go in the recycling bin”.

The top contaminant was drinking glasses, with a third (33%) of UK households mistakenly adding these items to their recycling. Foil pouches (29%) and toothpaste tubes (26%) were the next most common contaminants.

In support of the week, Trudy Harrison, the newly appointed waste minister, said: “Recycling and reusing more of our waste is such an important part of protecting the environment, but it is vital that we get it right so we don’t inadvertently consign recyclables to landfill through contamination.”

Other initiatives taking place during Recycle Week include the installation of a giant scannable QR code made of recyclable materials in Birmingham New Street station and as yet unnamed “landmark buildings” going green across the UK.

Sponsorship

Brands sponsoring Recycle Week this year include Arla Foods, Biffa, British Soft Drinks Association, Coca-Cola, Danone, innocent drinks, McDonald’s, The Natural Source Waters Association, Britvic, PepsiCo and Ocado.

City to Sea says the “language” used during Recycle Week “diminishes the companies’ own much more significant responsibility to tackle the plastic crisis” and “lays the blame and solutions on individual consumers”.

In a strongly worded statement, Steve Hynd, City to Sea’s policy manager, described having “the world’s biggest plastic polluters like Coca-Cola” as sponsors of Recycle Week as “nonsense”.

“This is greenwashing the dirties of business models, nothing more and nothing less,” he claimed. “To ask people to recycle more is an echo of the plastic industry’s language of long-standing excuses for inaction that demands people to mop up the mess faster while they keep flooding our communities with single-use plastics.”

City to Sea says Coca Cola has been the single largest plastic polluter for four years in a row.

Councils

Several councils have launched initiatives and called on the public to do more to mark the week.

North Yorkshire county council has installed recycling bins for unwanted medical equipment such as crutches, walking frames and bed levers at household waste recycling centres across North Yorkshire and York.

Nottinghamshire county council and its waste and recycling contractor, Veolia, have launched a checker on the MyNotts app to help residents ensure they put the correct items in their recycling bins.

Derby city council has lit up its headquarters, Council House, and the A52 footbridge in green.

And, Powys county council called on residents to check they were putting the right things in their recycling bins to help Wales become the best nation at recycling in the world.

Elsewhere, other local authorities in Bedford, Mid Ulster, Oxfordshire, Redbridge, Worcestershire and Wolverhampton also urged residents to check they were putting the right things in the right bins.