RECOUP have secured funding from Innovate UK to co-fund industry-led behaviour change project in Kent.
The leading plastics recycling organisation and charity RECOUP are heading up the industry-led research project in Kent that will reveal key insights into how to encourage citizens to reduce, reuse and recycle plastics.
Industry partners involved in the project include British Plastics Federation, Ecosurety, Kent Resource Partnership, Ocado, Plastics Europe, PPS Recovery Systems, Veolia and Viridor.
The ground-breaking research aims to understand better how communications can improve plastics recycling, with the resulting insights providing evidence to inform future plastic recycling engagement strategies. Ecosurety was one of the first funding partners of the project and continues to provide on-going support.
Connecting with 1.5 million citizens
RECOUP’s Pledge2Recycle Plastics citizen-facing brand will connect with the 673,000 households across Kent over a 12-month period, to gain citizen insights, deliver plastics recycling messages and evaluate the resulting tonnage and contamination data.
Advice on plastics recycling will be communicated to over 1.5 million citizens in a controlled structured way, with pre-agreed with all Kent Councils, Veolia and Viridor to provide a consistent message.
The project will provide an understanding on how plastics recycling targets can be met and the linkages between communications investment and recycling growth.
Help develop a clear and simple communication strategy
Sandeep Attwal, Procurement Manager at Ecosurety commented "Ecosurety is delighted to be supporting this project and recognises the importance of educating and helping residents to ensure the quality of material that is generated at the kerbside is to a high standard to achieve a circular economy."
"This project will provide useful information into household recycling practices and help develop a clear and simple communication strategy to drive up recycling rates."
Anne Hitch, Head of Citizen & Stakeholder Strategy at RECOUP and Pledge2Recycle Plastics project lead, commented, "This project represents a fantastic opportunity for the plastics industry opportunity to better understand better how we can reach 2025 recycling targets."
"The citizens of Kent have an opportunity to help formulate future policy and provide the UK with a blueprint demonstrating the links between plastics recycling communications and behaviour change.”
Ben Luger
Marketing projects specialist
Ben joined the team at the beginning of 2015 and helps drive marketing communications and projects for Ecosurety, including project managing the launch of the Ecosurety Exploration Fund and website content development.
Follow 
