Recycling’s most wanted

Hubbub’s Trewin Restorick looks at the ‘juicy’ new communication campaign recently launched in Kensington and Chelsea.

Can the creative communication skills of innocent drinks coupled with the knowledge of Hubbub boost household recycling rates and cut contamination? A new campaign launched in partnership with Kensington and Chelsea Council seeks to discover the answer.

If successful, it’s estimated that for every 1% increase in the household recycling rate, the council could save £63,000 a year in disposal costs.

The catalyst for the campaign was a desire by innocent drinks to use their talented writers and designers to boost recycling rates in the community around their headquarters.

Through a partnership with Hubbub, it was realised that this could best be done by supporting Kensington and Chelsea Council with their recycling communications.

Kensington and Chelsea

As one of the most densely populated boroughs in the UK and with a highly transient population, Kensington and Chelsea offers a particular recycling challenge.

Over the last 3 years, the borough has achieved an overall increase in its recycling rate of just under 3% (2.9%). Now standing at 28.6%, they are ahead of most other boroughs with similar housing composition, but there is still room to do even better.

Keen to understand the complexity of the challenge, Hubbub undertook polling of Londoners and held in-depth conversations with residents.

This revealed that 1 in 3 Londoners find recycling information difficult to understand, with less than half (45%) saying they’re confident about what can be recycled and more than half (51%) agreeing that clearer information would encourage them to recycle more.

The results of the insight were used by the creative teams at innocent to develop a positive, playful campaign asking residents to help catch “recycling’s most wanted” – high value items such as drink cans, yogurt pots and bathroom plastics that belong in the recycling but sometimes manage to escape.

Impact

The new communications will be featured on posters, recycling bags and leaflets, digital displays and recycling trucks across the borough and in a takeover of the Council’s social media channels.

The impact of the campaign will be assessed and results widely shared to help inform recycling communication campaigns run by councils across the UK.

If successful, it will boost recycling rates, cut contamination and save money at a time when public purse strings are under significant pressure.

Last week was National Recycling Week and as part of our #Greenprint for a better Britain, we’re asking government to invest in more recycling initiatives in green spaces across the UK.

Here’s how you can support the practical policy asks of the Greenprint and help reinvigorate the UK economy in a way that is fair and sustainable.

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