People from across Staffordshire are invited to join a new campaign to recycle more metal products found in their homes.

The ‘Make Your Metals Matter’ campaign wants people to recycle all the metal packaging found around their house, including food and drink cans, foil trays, empty aerosols and household aluminium wrapping foil.

It is estimated that around 400 million cans, foil trays and aerosols are used every year in Staffordshire. Used metal packaging can be recycled into new products at a far lower cost to the environment than making them from raw materials. For example, making drinks cans from recycled material saves up to 95% of the energy and greenhouse gas emissions needed to make both aluminium and steel from raw materials.

If all the metal packaging used in Staffordshire’s homes each year was collected for recycling it would save around 10,787 tonnes of carbon dioxide, the equivalent to taking 2,295 cars off local streets for a year.

Mark Winnington, Cabinet Member for Economic Growth at Staffordshire County Council said: “People in Staffordshire are already committed to recycling and reducing waste which is great news.

“We’re excited about this latest campaign and want to encourage people to think about recycling more metal packaging found throughout their home, not just in the kitchen but in the bathroom, and bedroom too. Food and drink cans, foil and empty aerosols are all easily and endlessly recyclable.

“And remember that every can recycled saves enough energy to run a TV for four hours – so a small action like putting your empty bean tin into your recycling container can make a big difference”

The campaign will include leaflets sent to 60,000 homes along with an online and social media campaign highlighting the benefits of recycling.

MetalMatters campaigns have run in over 100 local authority areas and reached over 6 million households since 2012. The Staffordshire campaign is being jointly funded by MetalMatters, an industry partnership comprising the UK’s leading producers, users and recyclers of metal packaging and Staffordshire Waste Partnership. The MetalMatters programme is managed by the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro) on behalf of the funding partners.

Rick Hindley, executive director of project managers Alupro, said: “It is great to be able to work in partnership with Staffordshire Waste Partnership to promote the recycling of metal packaging. This campaign has delivered significant increases in the amount of metal packaging collected for recycling in other parts of the UK, so we are aiming to repeat – and hopefully better this – in Staffordshire.”

People can find out more about recycling in Staffordshire on https://www.staffordshire.gov.uk/Waste-and-recycling/homepage.aspx

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Photo captions L-R: Rachel Melvin from Staffordshire County Council’s Waste Management team, Julie Meeks from Alupro and Mark Winnington, Cabinet Member for Economic Growth at Staffordshire County Council.

 

*6 Waste Partnerships taking part in the campaign: East Staffordshire BC, South Staffordshire DC, Tamworth BC, Staffordshire Moorlands DC, Lichfield DC and Cannock Chase DC.

 

** Number of packaging items is based on: 600 food tins, 380 drinks cans. 182 foil trays and 27 empty aerosols thrown out by an average household annually (1189 items), multiplied by the approx. number of households 336,000 in Staffordshire.

 

***CO2 equivalence based on: The average household consumption of steel and aluminium packaging across households in Staffordshire, the CO2 saving if this entire quantity was recycled and the average emission of CO2 from a standard car per annum. Actual calculations are available from Alupro.

 

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.

 

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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)

 

Industry organisations Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro) Beverage Can Makers Europe (BCME) British Aerosol Manufacturers Association (BAMA) Metal Packaging Manufacturers Association (MPMA) European Aluminium Association (EAA)	Household foil manufacturers Cofresco ITS Melitta WrapEx Ltd
Brands Marks & Spencer	Metal packaging manufacturers Ardagh Group Guala Closures Ball Packaging
Compliance schemes Ecosurety Limited Valpak Ltd	Metal reprocessors Novelis UK Ltd Tata Steel
Foil container manufacturers Coppice Alupack Nicholl Food Packaging i2r Packaging Solutions	Packer/fillers Unilever

The Greater Cambridge Shared Waste Service between Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council have launched the first MetalMatters campaign of 2018, to all 119,000 households in the area, with the aim of increasing metal capture rates through kerbside.

Each household has received a MetalMatters leaflet directly through their door, featuring visuals that demonstrate the types of shiny new products that can be made from metal packaging found all around the home, such as cans, tins, foil and empty aerosols.   Supporting communications include signage on collection vehicles, local roadshows and a social media campaign to reinforce the MetalMatters messages.

Executive councillor for Environmental Services and City Centre at Cambridge City Council, Cllr Rosy Moore said, “This is a timely campaign – we have recycled a respectable 53% of household waste so far this financial year but we are keen to maximise use of our resources in order to maintain a high standard of service for residents – capturing and recycling more high value materials is a great contribution to that end.”

MetalMatters, now in its sixth year, has communicated with over 5.5 million households across 84 local authority areas to date. The industry-funded programme has seen impressive results with an average increase of 12-18% in metal packaging capture rates, with some councils achieving increased rates of 25-28%.   With the revenue from the additional metals collected, authorities have seen a speedy return on their investments, the majority covering their costs within 12 months.

Cabinet Member for Environmental Services, Cllr Mark Howell, said “We are delighted to be launching MetalMatters across Cambridge City and South Cambridgeshire, we are confident that the campaign will have a significant positive impact on the behaviour of our recyclers, providing a boost for our metal packaging recycling figures and hopefully our overall recycling rate too.”

The Greater Cambridge campaign is being jointly funded by MetalMatters, an industry partnership of the UK’s leading metal packaging manufacturers, fillers, reprocessors, industry organisations and compliance schemes and The Greater Cambridge Shared Waste Service.

 

Since the MetalMatters programme launched in 2012, one in five UK councils have chosen the campaign as a vehicle to deliver their recycling messages to householders and increase the metal packaging captured at kerbside: A total of 5.3 million households have now received MetalMatters messages directly through their door.

Nine councils have launched MetalMatters campaigns in 2017, and seven have been launched since the beginning of September. All are receiving funding support from the industry partnership and have been developed with programme managers, Alupro.

Bristol City, South Staffordshire, Calderdale (W. Yorkshire), Castle Point (Essex), Cheshire West and Chester, Orkney and West Dunbartonshire are all using MetalMatters to promote metal packaging recycling to their residents.   In total 592,000 households in the past month have been directly communicated with and encouraged to recycle their drink cans, food tins, foil and empty aerosols.

Councillor Fi Hance, Cabinet Member for Energy, Waste and Regulatory Services in Bristol said:                ‘We’ve had lots of interest in the MetalMatters campaign since it was rolled out across the city by Bristol Waste Company in September. Metal is a valuable resource for Bristol and we are looking forward to seeing the results.”

Orkney Council is Britain’s smallest local authority, with a population of just 20,000 and a recycling infrastructure that relies heavily on bring banks as well as kerbside collections. The attraction of MetalMatters was the opportunity to communicate directly with residents through two leaflet drops to every household. The campaign is being used by the Council to inform residents that it has added aerosols and foil containers to its collection scheme for the first time; so it hopes that the  combination of information, education and reinforcement of the campaign messages will prove to be a positive method of boosting recycling rates.

Rick Hindley, Executive Director of MetalMatters programme managers, Alupro says:

“We are thrilled that one in five councils in the UK have partnered with the MetalMatters programme so far. We are particularly pleased to be working with Orkney: the programme has been deployed in both urban and rural areas and has proved successful in all settings, but this is the first time we have worked with such a small population.” He adds, “to date, every deployment has resulted in a positive impact on metal packaging capture rates which clearly demonstrates that focussing on behaviour change will deliver significant increases in recycling rates.”

 

The campaign is based around a two-phase leaflet drop that informs and reminds householders about what and how to recycle, and explains what happens to metal packaging when it is recycled.   The remaining campaign elements are completely flexible depending upon the needs of the local council who can choose from a ready-made library of resources ranging from bin stickers to cinema screen adverts.

The programme is funded by a partnership of metal packaging manufacturers, fillers and reprocessors, industry organisations and compliance schemes and is delivered on their behalf by Alupro, with support from local authorities and their waste collection partners.