The Surrey Environment Partnership (SEP) has launched a new campaign aiming to link resident behaviour around recycling and waste to its impact on the planet.
The SEP says the main focuses of the Own Your Impact campaign will be food waste reduction and recycling, and contamination of dry mixed recycling (DMR).
Launched in mid-May 2022, the SEP says the first focus of its campaign is to reduce food waste by highlighting the personal savings, which it says is nearly £750 per household per year, as well as the environmental benefits of reducing food waste.
The campaign is asking Surrey residents to make small behaviour changes, such as planning meals and food shopping in advance, storing food correctly and serving the right portion sizes, to collectively make a difference. The councils are offering information, advice, and leftover recipes through its website.
The full Own Your Impact campaign will run until March 2023.
SEP’s campaign will encourage residents to recycle the food waste they do produce. It will also ask them to reduce contamination of DMR bins and the amount of waste they produce overall, and recycle items such as textiles, small electricals, garden waste, paper, card, glass, metals and plastics.
Surrey Environment Partnership Chair, Neil Dallen, said: “From greenhouse gases created from wasted food to truckloads of good recycling sent to energy from waste due to contamination, the waste we produce and what we do with it can, collectively, make a big difference to the environment.
“That’s why I’ll be asking residents to visit the SEP website this year to find out how they can own their impact.”
SEP is made up of Surrey County Council and the 11 district and borough councils in the county. It aims to manage Surrey’s recycling and waste in the most efficient, effective, economical and sustainable manner.
The 11 district and borough councils are waste collection authorities and are responsible for the collection of Surrey’s municipal waste which includes recycling and waste from households.