Wiltshire Council joins national campaign to save recycling from the bin

Wiltshire Council has joined this year’s Recycle Week (14th – 20th October) to celebrate the efforts of people in Wiltshire and help save packaging heroes from the rubbish bin.  

Now in its 21^st year, Recycle Week, organised by Recycle Now, is the UK’s biggest celebration of recycling with activities to increase recycling taking place across the UK.

For Recycle Week 2024, Wiltshire Council joins an urgent mission to save packaging heroes from being put in the general waste bin and continue to live a circular life, through recycling.  

The latest Recycle Now research shows that while we’re a nation of recyclers - nine out of ten people regularly recycle, however nearly eight out of 10 of us (79%) put one or more items into the bin that could have been recycled.

To highlight the plight of the ill-fated packaging heroes, Recycle Now has created a team of characters to bring the campaign to life and is asking everyone to ‘Rescue Me – Recycle’.  

The condemned containers include Dee Dee the deodorant, Rey the plastic trigger spray, Yogi the yoghurt pot and humble Hube - the toilet roll tube. The group will feature on recycling in school education packs and on social media. Life-size characters have been produced to highlight the key message and will feature in media throughout Recycle Week. 

A week of fun activities with a serious message, Rescue Me – Recycle aims to empower people in Wiltshire to look out for these items missed most often in their weekly fortnightly recycling collection. Wiltshire Council will be encouraging residents to keep them in circulation by recycling.

The council is spotlighting the commonly missed items on their social media channels this week, so make sure you’re following on social media. Materials collected for recycling from Wiltshire residents are sent to re-processors to be turned into new products or raw materials to go back into the manufacturing process. For example, in the last financial year, the council recycled 15,360 tonnes of glass into new bottles and jars.

People are encouraged to visit the Wiltshire Council website to find out what they can recycle at https://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/recycling, and find out more information about what happens to recycling collected in Wiltshire at https://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/what-happens-to-recycling.

Cllr Dominic Muns, Cabinet Member for Waste and Environment, said, “In the last financial year (2023/24), we recycled, reused or composted 43.7% of Wiltshire’s household waste. Thanks to your efforts, that is nearly a 4% increase from the previous financial year (40%). To help us achieve our goal of recycling even more of Wiltshire’s waste, you can check our website to make sure you are recycling all of the items that can be recycled.  

“We are delighted to be supporting the Recycle Week campaign as it highlights some of the common items placed in general waste which could have been recycled. This is a key element of our ongoing Recycling: Let’s Sort It campaign. We will collect empty aerosols, yoghurt pots, toilet roll tubes, cleaning spray bottles and cans from your blue-lidded bin or bag. Glass bottles and jars should go in your black box.  

“Coinciding with Recycle Week, we are also pleased to be supporting ‘Recycle Your Electricals’ and their ‘Great Cable Challenge’ for International E-Waste Day (14 October). Cables contain copper which is one of the most precious materials on our planet and essential to our everyday lives. You can recycle your cables at any Wiltshire Council household recycling centre or through our small electricals kerbside collection service.

“I encourage residents to make the most of the wide variety of recycling services available in Wiltshire to help us to ensure valuable materials can be recaptured, recycled and used again, reducing the need to extract oil, to make plastic, and metal from the Earth.” 

Craig Stephens, Senior Campaign Manager for Recycle Now, said, “We are delighted that Wiltshire Council is supporting Recycle Week. While a light-hearted campaign, recycling is essential to limit the impact of what we buy has on the environment. Keeping these materials circulating means we can reduce emissions linked with our weekly shop. Most people are recycling, and the material we capture has a multitude of uses, so the next step is to ensure everyone captures everything they can. Every aerosol, every trigger spray bottle, every plastic pot, and toilet roll tube. Rescue – recycle!”