Recycling robot to drive message home in Tower Hamlets

The 6m giant, Mr Recycle More, has been built from wheelie bins by Emergency Exit Arts and will tour Tower Hamlets, taking his waste management message to the London borough’s schools, community centres and estates.

Historically, Tower Hamlets has had some of the worst recycling rates in the country but in recent years has begun making significant improvements.

One strand of the borough’s strategy has been to try to engage the community and the unveiling of the robot in Spitalfields Market this week is part of that plan.

Alongside the towering robot, the council’s awareness-raising campaign will see hundreds of posters on bill boards and buses starring local people who recycle.

Fiona Heyland, Tower Hamlets’ head of recycling, told edie that the borough was keen to improve its recycling rates.

“Over the last two years the council has done an awful lot of work to help educate people about recycling and give them access to services to make it easier for them to recycle,” she said.

“The launch today is about bringing recycling back to the community [so people can] feel things are being done for them and with them rather than to them.”

The unveiling of the robot follows the introduction of new services in the borough – green and food waste recycling as well as an army of litter pickers who will sort recyclable litter at the point they collect it for the first time.

The borough also recently launched Whitechapel as the first market in the country to recycle 100 per cent of the waste it generates.

Sam Bond