A new campaign has launched, urging households across South Staffordshire to recycle more of the 54m items of metal packaging used in the district each year – an average per household of approximately 600 food tins, 380 drink cans, 27 aerosols and 182 foil trays.
Research in the area has shown, however, that not all residents are aware that their metal packaging has the potential to be recycled. The new “MetalMatters” campaign, launched by South Staffordshire Council in partnership with Alupro, the Aluminium Packaging Recycling organisation, aims to raise awareness of the importance of recycling and help people understand what can be recycled as well as explain what happens to the metals collected.
The research shows that recycling all the metal packaging used in South Staffordshire each year would save around 1,476 tonnes of carbon dioxide – the equivalent of taking more than 314 cars off the road for a year.
Councillor Mary Bond, Cabinet Member for Community Services at South Staffordshire Council, said: “We are calling on local residents to make their metal matter and help increase South Staffordshire’s recycling performance. Recycling metal is good for the environment by reducing carbon dioxide emissions and helps reduce the cost of dealing with the district’s waste. In 2016/17, our residents recycled and composted 52% of their waste but there is still plenty more work to be done to improve this figure by including metal packaging like drinks cans, tins, aerosols and foil.
“Every can that is recycled saves enough energy to run a TV for four hours, so a small action like putting your empty drink can or baked bean tin into your blue recycling bin can make a big difference.”
During September, leaflets will be sent to each of the 46,000 households in South Staffordshire encouraging them to recycle metals and highlighting the importance of including any used metal packaging in their blue recycling bin. There will also be displays in council buildings, and information posted online through the Council website and social media channels.
The campaign is being jointly funded by South Staffordshire Council and MetalMatters, an industry partnership comprising the UK’s leading producers, users and recyclers of metal packaging. MetalMatters is run by the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro) on behalf of the funding partners.
Rick Hindley, Executive Director of project managers Alupro, said, “It’s great to be able to work in partnership with South Staffordshire Council to promote the recycling of metal packaging in the area. The MetalMatters programme has delivered significant increases in the volumes of metal packaging collected for recycling in other parts of the UK, so we’re aiming to repeat – and hopefully better this – in South Staffordshire.”