Kent MetalMatters campaign sees recycling increase

Kent Resource Partnership's (KRP) MetalMatters campaign has delivered a nine per cent increase in the amount of metal packaging collected, new figures have shown.

The communications campaign, labelled as MetalMatters's 'most ambitious', targeted over 600,000 householders in the 12 Kent authorities between October and December 2012.

Made up of a two-phase leaflet-drop approach, the campaign delivered leaflets to every household in the 12 KRP authorities once every six weeks for the duration of the campaign, and was supported by advertising across buses and council recycling collection vehicles.

In addition, MetalMatters provided the participating authorities with a range of template communication materials to use in local campaigns and activities to promote the benefits of metal recycling.

Campaign results

After the campaign push ended, ' detailed collection data' was analysed from eight of the local authorities in the KRP ( formerly known as the Kent Waste Partnership). These authorities cover 70 per cent of all households in the KRP area, normalised across the county.

According to the scheme's organiser, the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro), the campaign cost 21 pence per household (£128,500) making it the 'best value of any of the MetalMatters campaigns across the UK to date'.

Further, the campaign resulted in a 100 per cent return on investment within five months, generating a total additional income of £411,000.

Speaking of the success of the campaign, Rick Hindley, Executive Director of Alupro, said: 'The aim of MetalMatters is to help local authorities increase recycling capture rates by positively changing consumer behaviour and to not only recover the campaign investment costs, but deliver additional lasting revenue streams.

'Our partnership with Kent Resource Partnership was the most ambitious we'd attempted, but it has delivered on all counts. It reinforces our experience with previous MetalMatters campaigns that investment in householder communications can make a real difference to recycling capture rates, and go on to deliver cost-effective results for local authorities and their waste management partners.'

Councillor Paul Barrington-King, Chair of the KRP, added: 'The potential for kerbside services to capture greater quantities of valuable metals is an ongoing activity for the KRP. We were delighted to work with Alupro to roll out the MetalMatters campaign across the whole of Kent. The fact that we delivered the most ambitious and best value campaign to date shows how well the partnership between Alupro and the KRP focused on delivering top-notch results.

'The programme's success to date clearly demonstrates the benefits of communicating the merits of metal recycling at a local level.'

To date, MetalMatters campaigns have reached over two million households across the UK with 30 per cent of that number being in Kent.

Previous MetalMatters campaigns have also noted increases in capture following communication pushes, such as the appeals in Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire County Council, which recorded a nine per cent increase, and Sefton Council, which reported an increase in its capture rate of metals by 64 per cent (to 11.7 per cent).

Read more about MetalMatters.