MHW Magazine News and stories from the Materials Handling Industry
Smurfit Kappa Recycling and Birmingham City Council’s
successful partnership in recycling the city’s paper has been recognised by
the Recycling Awareness Campaign Award at the recent Plant and Waste
Recycling (PAWR) Awards.
The Recycling Awareness Campaign Award was presented to the local authority
partnership for providing residents with an outstanding information campaign
that successfully encouraged improved recycling and the reduction of waste
sent to landfill.
The longstanding and successful partnership between leading recycling
company Smurfit Kappa Recycling and Britain’s largest local authority
Birmingham City Council was strengthened by the recruitment of a Recycling
Liaison Officer in 2010, funded by Smurfit Kappa Recycling. A new public
awareness raising campaign secured additional funding from WRAP (Waste &
Resources Action Programme) and has successfully focused on the positive
message that Birmingham’s paper is recycled locally.
"Our public awareness campaign thanks the local community for recycling
paper and card and encourages everyone to do even more to be part of
Birmingham’s paper chain," said Councillor Huxtable, Birmingham City
Council. "We have successfully used leaflets and advertising on billboards,
in the local press, on radio, buses and online to remind householders how to
recycle paper and cardboard for kerbside collection every two weeks.
Since the partnership between Smurfit Kappa Recycling and Birmingham City
Council was first formed in 1993 the amount of paper recovered from the
waste stream for recycling has increased from 750 tonnes to around 40,000
tonnes today.
Since October 2010, 60 community groups and schools have been supported to
increase their recycling, or begin recycling, leading to a further 469
tonnes a year so far. With more schools and groups getting in touch to
request recycling services and assemblies, and the pro-active efforts, this
will increase further.
"Smurfit Kappa Recycling and Birmingham City Council have a long history of
working successfully in partnership to recycle as much of the city’s waste
paper and cardboard as possible and I am delighted this success of our joint
awareness campaign has been recognised by this PAWR Award," said Simon
Weston, managing director of Smurfit Kappa Recycling.
All of the paper and cardboard collected by Birmingham City Council is
recycled locally at the Smurfit Kappa paper mill in Nechells, helping to
minimise the carbon footprint of the whole collection service. Every year
the mill uses around 220,000 tonnes of waste paper and cardboard to make new
reels of brown paper, which are then used to make new cardboard boxes and
packaging.
