First MetalMatters campaign launches in Wales
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.