Like many boroughs, Sutton was keen to increase its recycling rates.Before we could begin development of the campaign, it was important to understand what Sutton residents knew about recycling in the borough, in order to develop the appropriate messaging.
Our research told us that whilst the overall recycling rate was good, one of the biggest issues Sutton faced was contamination: many residents were unsure of, and daunted by, the process and frequently put non-recyclables into recycling and vice versa.
So rather than creating a campaign that simply said ‘recycle more’, we created a campaign that informed residents of what could and could not be recycled. The campaign team partnered Ogilvy Change and together we came up with an idea that added a level of gamification.
There was a poster campaign that ran throughout the borough, and targeted social media messaging.
In addition the campaign team ran recycling roadshows, workshops amongst the community, a series of successful local awareness events, resident-to-resident support and direct input feedback and primary & secondary school assemblies to target and involve younger residents.
Ogilvy Change created an app on Trigger where players were shown a succession of waste items and asked to swipe left for recyclable and right for non-recyclable. At the end they were shown their score and which items they got wrong.
Thanks to the Sutton recycling scheme, an additional 39 tonnes of mixed dry recycling were collected in March 2016 than the previous year and they witnessed a 90% reduction in the number of contaminated household bins during the first exercise alone.
Residents’ overwhelmingly positive feedback stated the campaign materials are clear and helpful and we are optimistic for lasting and impactful change.
90
%
reduction in contaminated household bins during campaign
17
unique visitors to Sutton recycling page before campaign
975
unique visitors to Sutton recycling campaign during campaign
