Latest figures from industry recycling programme, MetalMatters, show that it has successfully delivered sustained increases in the volumes of metal packaging collected at the kerbside long after the initial communications campaign intervention period.

Analysis of recycling collections by two of the local authorities that ran campaigns during 2012 show capture rates have continued to rise steadily during 2013, providing lasting return on investment.

One year after the programme finished, Sefton Council’s metal capture rates have continued to rise by 16%. The additional revenue derived from the increased tonnage of valuable metal packaging collected covered the campaign costs in just three months, generating additional revenue stream to plough back into the area.

Figures show that 63% of the estimated total metal packaging used by households in Sefton is now collected for recycling. This is double the amount compared to before the MetalMatters campaign launched and is proof that the programme has a long-term impact on householders’ recycling behaviour.

Aberdeenshire Council has also recorded a sustained increase in metal packaging recycling since launching the MetalMatters programme in partnership with funding from Zero Waste Scotland in 2012, which generated a return on investment in just 10 months. In September 2012 the campaign had driven a 9% increase in metal capture rates. Now, a year after the campaign, metal tonnages collected at the kerbside have risen by 12%.

The MetalMatters programme is funded by metal packaging manufacturers, fillers and reprocessors and is delivered on their behalf by the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro), working in partnership with local authorities and their waste collection partners.

Campaigns include leaflet drops to households and targeted marketing communications activities to promote the ‘make your metals matter’ message. In addition, MetalMatters provides councils with a range of additional template communications materials to use in local activities to promote the benefits of metal recycling.

Rick Hindley, Executive Director at Alupro says: “These latest figures show that local authorities implementing the MetalMatters campaign can create a long-lasting change in peoples’ recycling behaviour. They prove that the significant investment and time that went into researching and developing the programme has paid off. Our local authority partners are experiencing such positive results in increasing their recycling rates and reducing their waste sent to landfill that they not only recover the campaign investment costs but also generate additional revenue streams that can be ploughed back into the communities they serve.”

Pam Walker, Principal Waste Management Officer at Aberdeenshire Council, said: “We are committed to driving up kerbside recycling rates and when we launched the MetalMatters campaign last year we were very pleased to see the immediate positive effect it had on metal capture rates across the area. We have continued to use the campaign materials since then, and this has helped remind residents about the value of recycling their metals. What is even better is that these results have been sustained, and have improved further, showing that the messages have really hit home with people.”

To date MetalMatters campaigns have reached over 2.4 million households across the UK and there are new partnerships with local authorities planned for 2014 to further increase consumer awareness around kerbside recycling.

Metalmatters is run by the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro) on behalf of the funding partners.

Newport City Council has become the first local authority in Wales to launch the MetalMatters recycling communications programme — a campaign supported by the industry partnership and Waste Awareness Wales.

The ‘make your metals matter’ campaign is being launched to encourage residents in Newport to recycle more of the estimated 75 million units of metal packaging — including food and drink cans, aerosols, aluminium foil trays and the wrapping foil — they use in their homes each year.

Leaflets delivered to every household will help residents understand what else can be recycled in the council’s recycling bins and civic amenity sites, and explain what happens to the metals collected.

The eight-week campaign launched at a recycling roadshow held at the Newport City Homes Residents Festival and will target each of the 65,000 households in the City with leaflets sent to every home, coverage in the council’s residents magazine and lamp post advertising which will carry the ‘make your metals matter’ message.

Roadshows at local supermarkets and a competition to win a range of metal products featured on the campaign leaflets will also be used to spread the message to residents.

Cllr Ken Critchley, Cabinet Member for Infrastructure at Newport City Council, said: “We’re calling on Newport residents to make their metals matter and hope this campaign will help to educate them about metal packaging recycling and the benefits it can have on increasing the city’s sustainability. We are committed to decreasing the amount of waste sent to landfill and we hope this campaign will encourage our residents to recycle more of their metal packaging.”

Andrew Osborne, Recycling Officer at Waste Awareness Wales said “We’re proud to support this campaign which is the first of its kind in Wales focusing on metal packaging. We hope we see increases in metal recycling as well as other materials collected by Newport Council at the kerbside”

Rick Hindley, Executive Director of project managers Alupro, said: “We are excited to be launching our first MetalMatters campaign in Wales and to be working in partnership with Waste Awareness Wales to co-fund this programme. Similar MetalMatters campaigns have delivered impressive results for local authorities and their waste management partners in other areas of the UK, and we are confident that this communications campaign can help Newport City Council to increase recycling capture rates by positively changing consumer behaviour.

“Previous MetalMatters campaigns have shown that the more consumer-facing activity the local authorities implement, the greater the effect it has on capture rates. Newport City Council has really taken this on board with a series of roadshows and a competition for residents to further drive local engagement, and we look forward to working with them over the coming months to help drive it forward.”

The campaign is being jointly funded by MetalMatters, an industry partnership comprising the UK’s leading producers, users and recyclers of metal packaging, Waste Awareness Wales and Newport City Council. Metalmatters is run by the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro) on behalf of the funding partners.

A major communications campaign that targeted over 600,000 households in Kent has driven a 9% increase in the tonnage of metal packaging captured by kerbside recycling collections.

The MetalMatters campaign, which ran from October to December 2012, was delivered jointly by Alupro and the Kent Resource Partnership (KRP). Alupro figures indicate the value from the increased tonnage covered the campaign costs in a five month period.

Funded jointly by the metal packaging sector and the KRP, the campaign cost 21p per household, the best value of any of the MetalMatters campaigns across the UK to date.

The campaign included a two-phase leaflet drop to every household in the 12 districts in the KRP area, six weeks apart. This was supported by advertising across buses and council recycling collection vehicles. In addition MetalMatters provided the councils with a range of template communications materials to use in local campaigns and activities to promote the benefits of metal recycling.

Rick Hindley, Executive Director of project managers Alupro, said: “The aim of MetalMatters is to help local authorities increase recycling capture rates by positively changing consumer behaviour and to not only recover the campaign investment costs, but deliver additional lasting revenue streams.

“Our partnership with Kent Resource Partnership was the most ambitious we’d attempted but it has delivered on all counts. It reinforces our experience with previous MetalMatters campaigns that investment in householder communications can make a real difference to recycling capture rates, and go on to deliver cost-effective results for local authorities and their waste management partners.”

Councillor Paul Barrington-King, Chair of the KRP, said: “The potential for kerbside services to capture greater quantities of valuable metals is an ongoing activity for the KRP. We were delighted to work with Alupro to roll-out the MetalMatters campaign across the whole of Kent. The fact that we delivered the most ambitious and best value campaign to date shows how well the partnership between Alupro and the KRP focused on delivering top-notch results.

“The programme’s success to date clearly demonstrates the benefits of communicating the merits of metal recycling at a local level.”

To date MetalMatters campaigns have reached over two million households across the UK with 30% of that number being in Kent. Many local authorities have been able to improve their metal capture rates. In areas with existing good capture rates, like Kent, a 9% increase is very significant.

Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire County Council, in partnership with Zero Waste Scotland, also recorded a nine per cent increase in the capture rate of all metals in the region. Another example saw Sefton Council increase its capture rate of metals by 64 per cent.

Metalmatters is run by the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro) on behalf of the funding partners.

We completed four campaigns in 2012, working with 15 local authorities. Two programmes were developed which will complete in the coming months, meaning that the metals recycling message has directly reached 1.9 million households in the past 12 months. Of the 31 local authorities involved 13 have expanded their recycling schemes to include a wider range of metal packaging, including foil trays, empty aerosols, household foil and bottle caps and closures.

The first four campaigns have seen a growth in the percentage of metals arising in the recycling stream — in Sefton metal recycling rates rocketed by 64%.

With local authority budgets under pressure MetalMatters offers an effective and affordable way for local authorities and waste contractors to make people aware that their metals are endlessly recyclable. The 2012 campaigns cost less than 35p per household to run, falling to 19p per household for the Kent Waste Partnership scheme.

However we did face challenges. Collecting data from individual authorities in a format that enabled comparisons within and between the different programmes was the greatest, and one of the programme’s key focuses is to refine this over the next 12 months to provide clearer statistical analysis.

We made great progress in 2012, and it was encouraging to see the programme championed in Parliament by Lord de Mauley, Minister of Resources.

On the partnership front we are delighted that the programme has received funding commitments from individual manufacturers and trade groups involved in the metal packaging supply and recycling chain. MetalMatters is now a true industry partnership, and in turn is focused on developing meaningful partnerships with local authorities and their waste management contractors to deliver higher volumes of valuable metal packaging. To this end we will be returning to earlier campaigns during the coming year to assess the longer term impact of the programme on metal capture rates.

We will work to build on the success of 2012 and continue in our mission to get more UK households to make kerbside recycling a weekly habit.

The innovative campaign is the first of its kind to launch in London, and involves two leaflet drops delivered six weeks apart to all 365,000 households across the four boroughs in the South London Waste Partnership — Croydon, Kingston, Merton and Sutton.

Each Borough will run its own local community activities to back the campaign, which is also being supported with outdoor advertising splashed across buses, trams and collection vehicles.

The programme is designed to remind people that all of their household metal packaging can be recycled and reused endlessly, and turned into any type of metal product, from a paper clip to a washing machine, or another food or drinks can.

The South London campaign is being jointly funded by the metal packaging industry partnership MetalMatters, Recycle for London and recycling company Viridor, and it is the first programme that has received a direct financial contribution from a waste management contractor.

Commenting on the launch, Councillor Derek Osbourne, Chair of the South London Waste Partnership Joint Committee, said: “This is the first time that the MetalMatters programme has been implemented in London, and the campaign shows our commitment to increasing recycling rates and keeping valuable recyclables away from landfill sites.

“People in South London are keen to do their bit for the environment, and the campaign is a great way for us to encourage them to recycle household items such as food and drink cans and aerosols more often.”

Mike Stafford, Viridor’s Regional Manager, said: “I am delighted that Viridor is able to support the MetalMatters campaign. Supporting initiatives like this is at the core of our business and I look forward to seeing more metal packaging arriving at our facilities for recycling in the months to come.”

Rick Hindley, Executive Director of MetalMatters project managers Alupro, said: “The South London campaign is a great way to kick-off MetalMatters in 2013. We are delighted to be working with Recycle for London, and that Viridor have agreed to come on board and make a significant financial contribution to the campaign; it makes it a true partnership programme. We are looking forward to seeing the impact the MetalMatters campaign has on metal packaging capture rates.”

This MetalMatters campaign follows five other projects that ran around the UK in 2012. Over 2 million households have now been reached by the programme since Alupro was charged with project management by founding partners BCME, Novelis Recycling and Tata Steel in 2011.