Ecosurety and Hubbub to collaborate on consumer-facing recycling campaigns

Resource efficiency firm Ecosurety has announced a new partnership with environmental charity Hubbub to launch a consumer-facing campaign later this year aimed at boosting recycling rates in the UK.


Ecosurety will finance the campaign, which will focus on battery recycling, through money generated from producer responsibility compliance evidence under the company’s Circularety platform.

Under the partnership, two campaigns a year will be run annuall from 2018 and will be funded by all compliance money, depending on the campaign. For example, if a campaign were to focus on packaging then funding money could be generated from Packaging Recovery Notes (PRN) – which serve as evidence to prove that packaging material has been recycled into new content.

Future Hubbub campaigns will be funded by all producer responsibly compliance evidence, such as WEEE, packaging and batteries, through Ecosurety. The campaigns, which will gather opinions from producers and recyclers about what issues should be prioritised, are expected to generate more compliance evidence for producer members.

Ecosurety’s managing director James Piper said: “We strongly feel that if UK consumers were better informed and therefore better able to care about recycling best practice, our recycling rates would increase even further. The collaboration with Hubbub and use of compliance evidence money that has already been spent by producers, aims to fix this disconnect between the consumer and the waste and recycling industry.”

The two organisations will launch the first public awareness campaign this Autumn. An unnamed UK retailer will also be a part of the campaign, which will encourage households to recycle more batteries.

Hubbub has previously championed numerous behaviour change campaigns, including the high-profile coffee cup recycling initiative which led to more than 1.2m paper cups being recycled. The charity also focuses on community fridges for perishable food and a forthcoming campaign to improve plastic recycling.

“Working with dedicated and passionate partners such as Ecosurety, which is uniquely positioned to connect recyclers with major brands and create sustainable change, is key to Hubbub’s approach,” the charity’s chief executive Trewin Restorick said.

“We are committed to creating campaigns with tangible impacts and longevity, and are excited to devise awareness-raising campaigns to help UK consumers make better choices about how and what they recycle.”

Gum Forest

In related news, a “Gum Forest” appeared outside of Willesden Green tube station last week (6 September) to raise awareness of responsible gum disposal. The Chewing Gum Action Group (CGAG) surrounded the tube station with a pop-up woodland for the day to stop people dropping chewing gum in the area.

Research conducted by Wrigley in 2016 found that people are less likely to drop gum in areas of natural space, so the makeshift forest was constructed to reinforce this behaviour.

To counter a nationwide issue, Gum Forests will be rolled out across 44 council areas throughout the next two months. The costs of the project will be funded by the chewing gum industry. The Willesden Green Gum forest Gum Forest will be divided up between various community gardens.

Matt Mace

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