As we celebrate Global Recycling Day, three UK Councils are launching their MetalMatters campaigns.

As more and more people across the UK shift their focus towards recycling today, Merthyr Tydfil, Powys and Teignbridge District Council in Devon will urge a total of 157,000 households to ‘Make their metals matter’.   Starting today, and for the next 12 weeks, residents will be encouraged to recycle all of their drink cans, food tins, empty aerosols, foil and foil trays in their kerbside recycling bins.

Every household will receive leaflets about MetalMatters and the campaign will be supported through local roadshows, outdoor advertising, social media and even a competition to win family tickets to Devon’s top attractions for lucky residents in Teignbridge!

Following the ‘Closing the Loop: Four steps towards 100% aluminium packaging recycling’ report published last week by Green Alliance¹, these campaigns could not be more timely.

Rick Hindley, executive director of project managers Alupro, said:

‘The Green Alliance report indicated that only 13% of aerosols and foil are currently collected for recycling and considering that on average UK households use 27 aerosols, 182 foil trays and 144 metres of wrapping foil per year, it is a great opportunity to divert this valuable metal away from landfill and back into the recycling loop.   Aerosols and foil are also the two most likely items to cause confusion for householders regarding recycling which is why it is so important to clarify their recyclability and highlight the importance of recycling metal packaging² ’

The three campaigns are being jointly funded by MetalMatters, an industry partnership comprising of the UK’s leading producers, users and recyclers of metal packaging and Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council, Powys County Council and Devon County Council respectively.   MetalMatters is a shining example of how industry and local authority collaboration can provide a much needed communications boost to improve metal capture rates and reduce contamination.

Launched in 2012 the programme has been deployed in 99 local authorities and directly communicated with over 6 million households to date.

ENDS

Pictured: MetalMatters launch with Powys County Council L-R: Nicola Jones, systems and communication manager, Tata Steel; James Thompson, senior waste awareness and enforcement officer, Powys County Council; Kate Cole, programme manager, Alupro.

¹ Green Alliance report, ‘Closing the Loop: Four steps towards 100% aluminium packaging recycling’

² WRAP Recycling Tracker Survey 2018

About MetalMatters

MetalMatters was developed and is funded by the metal packaging manufacturing industry, reprocessors and fillers. The programme works in partnership with local authorities and their waste collection partners to promote metal packaging recycling, and thereby improve capture rates for metal packaging at the kerbside. The MetalMatters programme is supported by WRAP. MetalMatters is being managed on behalf of the funding partners by the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro).

For details of MetalMatters campaigns and case studies visit www.metalmatters.org.uk

MetalMatters funding partners (at 1^st March 2019)