UK 'recycling on the go' campaign expands

October, United Kingdom-based environmental charity Hubbub launched what it calls “the U.K.’s biggest collaborative recycling on the go campaign” by installing 124 new recycling points in Leeds, England. Within six months, the Leeds by Example pilot campaign collected 600,000 coffee cups, 65,000 aluminum cans and 55,000 plastic bottles from bins placed at workplaces, universities and retailers, doubling recycling rates in the city, Hubbub recently announced.

People disposing of coffee cups, cans and plastic bottles in recycling bins increased from 17 percent to 32, according to results.

“We consume more food and drink on the go in the U.K. than we used to, yet much needed on-the-go recycling infrastructure for all this packaging has not kept up,” Hubbub says in its 2019 Impact Report.

Leeds by Example is a collaboration between 25 retailers, brands and manufacturers. Led by Hubbub and Ecosurety, in collaboration with Leeds City Council, the campaign rolled out colorful orange “smiley” coffee cup bins and yellow bins to collect plastic and aluminum cans.

Using visual and interactive elements and the hashtag #LeedsbyExample, a survey found that 82 percent of the public in Leeds were aware of the recycling campaign. Due to the success, the model will be rolled out in Swansea and Edinburgh, Scotland, later this year and will also continue for another six more months in Leeds, the firm says.

Four reverse vending machines (RVMs) were installed at a shopping mall, university, parking garage and market as part of the project. Rewards from the RVMs ranged from 10 pence to a local homeless charity to 10 pence toward food and fuel rewards.

Efforts to increase recycling rates have expanded across the U.K. The government of Scotland recently announced its plans to introduce a deposit return scheme (DRS) for aluminum and steel cans and plastic and glass bottles.

In response to the announcement, British Plastics Foundation (BPF) issued a statement calling for “comprehensive” deposit return schemes in the U.K. that include all materials and “encourages a culture where everybody recycles as much as possible and creates less waste.”

However, BPF warns, “We need to introduce these schemes carefully, so they do not significantly raise the price of products, disadvantage smaller retailers or cause major disruption to existing recycling schemes,” adding that deposit return schemes can significantly alter the quantities of key materials collected from households.

“It makes sense to aim to implement a U.K.-wide, multi-material DRS once extended producer responsibilities have been clarified and any complications that arise in Scotland have been resolved,” BPF says in the statement. “We hope implementing this multi-material scheme in Scotland goes smoothly, increases investment in its recycling and waste management infrastructure and sets a fine example for what can be achieved across the U.K.”