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6 Local Authority Waste & Recycling April 2015 he inner-city London Borough of Lewisham has a recycling rate of 17% and is home to 122,000 households, with numbers rising exponentially. Just under 40,000 residences are made up of large estate properties and tower blocks, with communal recycling bins located externally, and often incorporating a chute system for disposal and residual waste. As a result, low participation and contamination of bins have proved problematic for recycling services. In early 2014, the authority deployed metal packaging recycling campaign, MetalMatters, to increase metal capture rates, raise awareness of general recycling and address the contamination issue. The budget (programme cost) of £29,100 was spilt between the MetalMatters programme and the authority. Results show that the MetalMatters campaign proved a great success, generating additional annual value of £40,113 - or 33p per household. Lewisham Council waste initiatives and contract officer Paddy Swift says: "I was hoping to encourage participation from people who were not recycling initially, and it was also a change to look at the issue of contamination, which I imagine is a problem for all councils that collect waste in a commingled way." 'Metalaholic' The programme targeted residents with a range of activities to promote recycling. MetalMatters launched in February 2014 with an event in Lewisham Shopping Centre, and the distribution of the MetalMatters 'Transformation' leaflet to all households across the borough. This was supported by Twitter, press campaigns, advertisements in prime outdoor locations and displays on recycling collection vehicles. The launch event was managed by Lewisham's in-house communications team, which initiated an art project for local schoolchildren and, in the process, generated photography opportunities for the local press. The local authority's contacts proved invaluable in sourcing a free slot at the shopping centre to host the event, where children designed an eye-catching artwork from recyclable metal packaging. The recycling team T With a high level of flats and estate properties on its books, the London Borough of Lewisham faces challenges around recycling participation and contamination. Yet, a metal packaging recycling programme has helped the community to recycle more. Rick Hindley reports. Raising the metal bar in Lewisham METAL PACKAGING Rick Hindley is executive director Alupro. was on hand to distribute leaflets, give away MetalMatters fridge magnets and talk to shoppers. "Lots of people stopped to ask what was going on," Swift says. "They were doing their shopping, which offered a good excuse to talk about the tins, cans and aerosols in their shopping bags. The shopping centre was a fantastic location for the event and it came together really well." The event resulted in coverage in both the main local weekly papers, News Shopper and South London Press. Results Sampling from Lewisham's materials recovery facility provider, Bywaters, showed a rise of 12.3% in metals capture, with an additional 91.2 tonnes collected annually. The total volume of cans collected per household increased from 5.9kg to 6.6kg, generating an additional £30,966 – or 26p per household. Combined with landfill savings of £9,117, the additional value created by the programme totalled £40,113. At 33p per household, this far outstripped the campaign budget of 24p per household, and resulted in campaign costs being recovered in just eight months. Summing up the success of the campaign, Swift says: "My personal feeling is that it went very well. The key is to try to reach as many people as possible with the resources available you have to hit people from lots of different angles. There is very little money available for campaigns such as this any more, so the funding from MetalMatters made a real difference." The initiative has also had success in Newport. After implementing the campaign in Newport, the council saw a rise of 62.7 tonnes of metals per year and an added income of more than £9,000. With the direct element of the Lewisham campaign, itself over, the 'make your metals matter' message remains: "The borough's recycling vehicles still feature MetalMatters messaging, and the local authority also uses leaflets and promotional displays and giveaways at events to keep reminding residents of the need to recycle more," Swift says. He adds: "Recycling messages always have to keep reinventing themselves with something fresh and eye-catching. Apart from our work, we're also competing with commercial people selling products. We haven't got billion- pound budgets for these campaigns, but I think we did very well and made the money stretch a long way – we got a lot out of the budget, and reached a lot of people." Local schoolchildren promote the MetalMatters campaign in Lewisham

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