EnviroComms helps Bristol
hit 39% recycling

The power of good communications has been further highlighted this week with the news that Bristol City Council has achieved 39% recycling within just 1 week of rolling out their new collection scheme, thanks in no small part, to a highly innovative communication campaign developed by EnviroComms.

With a recycling rate languishing at 17%, the council expanded the existing black box collection scheme to include cardboard, kitchen waste and an optional and chargeable green waste collection service as well as moving to alternate week collections.

Despite concerns from residents, particularly relating to the decision to charge for garden waste collection, the scheme was rolled out on 8th August with great success.

The campaign that promoted the new scheme used some highly innovative techniques to get the message across as EnviroComms MD; Stephen Bates explains: “Bristol is known for it’s culture of creativity so we knew that we could push the creative boundaries further than we’d done before. We also spotted that it’s an area with a high level of environmental awareness so simply pushing this aspect of the new scheme would simply be adding to the plethora of environmental messages already out there. Instead, we focused on the need to change, highlighting that change is a good thing illustrating this with images of once loved items but ones that nobody would ever consider going back to. The information material then explained the reasons why waste collection was changing and that this too, was a good thing”.

The campaign follows and initial trial run across 30,000 homes in Bristol back in May where the council exceeded there targets in just the second week of the trial.

Having helped Kettering achieve a 45% recycling rate, there’s a strong correlation beginning to form between high recycling and the use of EnviroComms.

Click here to read the campaign case study

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