Michelle Whitfield, Head of Communications and Behavioural Change at Greater Manchester Combined Authority, explains how the authority has learned to make the language of waste more accessible to the general public.
How do we talk about waste without the jargon? If we want our residents to move further up the waste hierarchy and adopt a more circular approach, then we must use language that is easy to understand.
One of the positive changes we’ve seen happening across Greater Manchester is the increase in reuse and repair projects.
Alongside the development of the Greater Manchester Renew Hub, the UK’s largest reuse and repair centre, we’ve also seen an increase in repair cafes, community-run bike repair and school uniform donation redistribution schemes popping up across the city region.
However, one frustrating thing is how the catch-all term of recycling is widely used to describe these types of reuse and repair activities.
Do we need to rethink the waste hierarchy?
Recycling is a social norm; most residents take part in household recycling services. Of all the waste activities on the waste hierarchy, recycling is probably the one that is familiar to most residents, but very few understand why it’s important to recycle and its link to resource depletion and climate change.
So, when we start to talk about waste prevention and reuse, the language we use is important, especially if we want more people to take active steps to reduce their waste.
At Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), we were one of the partners involved in a research project led by Keep Britain Tidy, along with Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority, CIWM and SUEZ recycling and recovery UK.
The result of the project was a report, ‘A guide to improving the public’s understanding of waste prevention’, which looked at the public’s misunderstanding of waste prevention and how we talk about it has a bearing on how widely reuse and repair behaviours are adopted.
The result is a new waste hierarchy using simpler language to explain reuse and waste prevention.
One of the participants of the study, when asked about reducing waste, suggested they do this by buying products with less packaging. In the waste industry, we understand waste prevention to mean not buying the product in the first place.
Putting this to the test, GMCA opened our Renew Community Fund in April this year, but purposely changed the language we used in our communications. Instead of referring to reuse and repair projects, we used words like fix, mend, share, and donate to describe projects that were eligible for the funding.
The result was 113 applications, a 61% increase on the previous year and a wide range of projects from community groups that we hadn’t worked with before.
If we’re going to make waste prevention activities like repair cafes, libraries of things and school uniform donation schemes mainstream and desirable to the masses, then language is important.
Community and culturally specific references make it more relatable. And using words like share, donate, and mend also promotes a circular mindset without the need to use the term circular economy.
In Greater Manchester, there are 90 different languages spoken, according to the 2021 census, so using simple, accessible language is crucial if we want everyone to participate.
Repair and reuse initiatives have often been regarded as niche and only for those with spare time, money or a strong environmental ethic, so the use of language is key to promoting them as affordable and practical solutions for everyone.
Repairing items helps to save money, build new skills through sewing or fixing bikes and helps to strengthen community cohesion.
Consistent and clear language also helps to build trust and credibility. Manufacturers that use language like biodegradable and compostable are often seen as greenwashing, and it doesn’t help to aid understanding in what happens to the material after use.
Earlier this year, GMCA ran a food waste survey to get a better understanding of why some residents are still not using local authority food waste recycling services. All nine of the Greater Manchester councils that are part of the GMCA waste disposal contracts offer a food and garden waste collection service for most households.
When residents were surveyed about why they didn’t use the service, some residents suggested that they didn’t have any food waste at all. However, when this was explored with them, the research found that what they meant was that they don’t purposely waste food.
So, the language we use could be a barrier to some people taking part in putting food that cannot be eaten into the food recycling service.
Maybe the answer is to simply refer to it as a food recycling service and avoid using the word ‘waste’. There is confusion around whether the service is only for items commonly home composted, like veg peelings, but we know that the food waste service accepts all types of raw and cooked food, including bones and eggshells. So how do we clearly communicate this?
Recycling is a well-understood term, and other items around the house are regularly recycled, so why not all types of food? By removing the word waste, does that help to clearly communicate what items we want residents to put in their food bin?
The next step is to test this theory with our residents to gauge their understanding.
Concepts like reusing and repairing are not new ideas, but we’ve rebranded them with modern terminology like circular economy to fit today’s sustainability narratives.
The phrase ‘make do and mend’ became especially prominent during the Second World War in Britain when resources were scarce and people were encouraged to repair clothing and household items rather than buy new ones.
In a world of convenience and consumerism where a replacement product is one click away, there is no need for making do and mending. However, if we can use the right language to convey why it’s important to reuse and repair items by linking our consumption habits to climate change and resource depletion, then maybe in 20 years, reuse will be the new recycling?