Since this week is Recycle Week, we thought it would be a good time to look back on all our work in the waste and recycling sector.
Not only is this year the 10th anniversary of Recycle Week, but it’s also Enventure Research’s 10 year anniversary. Enventure was formed in 2003 and delivers research, engagement and consultation for public sector organisations such as local authorities, the NHS, police and other non-for-profit public sector bodies.
Due to Enventure Research’s strong roots in the environment and waste sector, our work has often focused on recycling, allowing us to focus on the environment as one of our specialist areas. Working with local authorities across the UK, projects have ranged from resident engagement campaigns to encourage local residents to increase the amount they recycle, to research projects investigating barriers to recycling and consultation and review of recycling services.
Over the years we have conducted countless resident engagement campaigns on recycling all over the UK. Often known as doorstepping or doorknocking campaigns, the main emphasis of these projects is to speak to as many residents as possible in a defined area to promote the recycling services available, encourage increased recycling, understand barriers to recycling and help residents find solutions, and collect useful data about attitudes towards recycling and recycling habits.
We employ local staff to go out into their communities and engage with residents on their doorstep, utilising their local knowledge and understanding of waste and recycling to provide specifically tailored advice and information to residents. Research has found that face to face engagement with residents on recycling messages can have a profound impact on their awareness, attitudes and behaviour, far more than simply providing a leaflet or letter. On the doorstep we are able to have a real conversation with the resident (hopefully focusing on recycling and not all other council services!) to truly understand their usage of their local recycling services and encourage them to do more to recycle.
Doing some rough calculations, we estimate that, over the last 10 years, we have conducted over 80 recycling engagement campaigns, visting approximately 2 million households and speaking to almost 600,000 residents, which will have undoubtedly gone a long way to increasing the recycling rates across the UK. Also, as we conduct all our doorstep engagement and data collection electronically via handheld tablet computers, not via pen and paper, we estimate that we have saved nearly 20 tonnes (20,000 kg) of paper during the last 10 years – that’s almost 400 trees!
We hope to continue our involvement in waste and recycling with local authorities into the future to continue to encourage increased levels of recycling, and provide council’s with informed understanding of how to improve their recycling services into the future.
Whilst recycling is clearly very important (especially since it’s Recycle Week!), we are beginning to notice a shift towards other waste prevention techniques further up the waste hierarchy, including reuse and waste reduction. Now that such a large proportion of the UK population are on board with recycling and see it as part of everyday life, it is clear that the focus of future resident engagement activity will begin to focus on waste reuse and reduction to move towards a truly sustainable method of managing our waste.
However, there is still much more than can be done with Recycling, and the current UK target of 50% of waste recycled by 2020 still needs to be achieved! At Enventure we encourage you to get involved in Recycle Week by finding out what is happening in your local area.
Please click here to view some of our case studies for projects relating to waste, recycling and the environment.
If you would like any more information about the services we offer, or what we could do for your local authority or organisation, please get in touch by emailing matthew@enventure.co.uk , calling 01484 404797 or or completing our online contact form.