Birmingham City Council and Smurfit Kappa Recycling win PAWR Award for Recycling Awareness Campaign

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.