Ecosurety links up with Hubbub to target materials recycling

Environmental charity Hubbub has teamed up with resource efficiency specialist Ecosurety to increase recycling quality in the UK.

The collaboration will see the two organisations working together from 2018 to produce two consumer-facing campaigns a year, created and executed by behaviour change campaigners Hubbub, using money from the producer compliance scheme.

The compliance money will come from Ecosurety members raising funds directly through the scheme’s Circularety platform, which aims to increase transparency by showing where producers’ money is going.

The materials, campaigns and issues to be targeted using the funds will be decided based on the opinions of obligated producers and recyclers, obtained through regular canvassing of these stakeholders.

Before the formal start of the collaboration, Ecosurety and Hubbub will be launching a public awareness campaign this Autumn, with the support of major UK retailers, encouraging households to recycle batteries, after the UK fell short of its 2016 battery recycling target.

Commenting on the new partnership, James Piper, Managing Director at Ecosurety, said: “Ecosurety has seen first-hand just how easy it can be for waste to be rejected because it is contaminated, mixed with other materials, or does not make it into the recycle system at all.

“We strongly feel that if UK consumers were better informed and therefore better able to care about recycling best practice, our recycling rates would increase even further. The collaboration with Hubbub and use of compliance evidence money that has already been spent by producers, aims to fix this disconnect between the consumer and the waste and recycling industry.”

Trewin Restorick, Hubbub’s CEO, added: “Working with dedicated and passionate partners such as Ecosurety, which is uniquely positioned to connect recyclers with major brands and create sustainable change, is key to Hubbub’s approach. We are committed to creating campaigns with tangible impacts and longevity, and are excited to devise awareness-raising campaigns to help UK consumers make better choices about how and what they recycle.”

Experience

Hubbub has a its track record in running awareness campaigns. Back in May, the charity unveiled its ‘Trashconverter Van’ where members of the public can exchange litter for food, flowers and hot drinks in the Forest of Dean as part of its #LoveYourForest anti-litter campaign, while also targeting ‘tidy litterers’ as part of its ‘For Fish’s Sake’ campaign in London, aiming to remind capital residents of the impact of littering on the marine environment.

In February 2016, the charity released the results of its Neat Streets campaign, the testing a number of innovative methods for reducing street litter, which suggested that over the campaign’s six-month timescale the amount of litter produced had been reduced by 25 per cent.

In April it launched the Square Mile Challenge, a partnership with businesses and local authorities in the City of London to increase the collection and recycling of coffee cups, following a similar #1MoreShot campaign in Manchester.