The Authority was awarded funding of £23,625 from Resource London to take part in a London-wide campaign during Recycle Week using Recycle for London communications material, with the 2016 theme being 'The Unusual Suspects'. The aim of the week was to encourage people to think about all those items which often get forgotten about when recycling at home.
The funding was used to buy 73 adverts on telephone boxes in Hammersmith and Fulham, Lambeth and Wandsworth and six bus shelter adverts, seven telephone box adverts and over 400,000 mobile phone adverts in Kensington and Chelsea.
In line with the waste hierarchy, WRWA and its constituent councils highlighted that they wished to increase the re-use of products and materials received as part of their waste streams.
It was felt that the most effective way of capturing these materials was to work in partnership with experts in reuse, such as London Community Resource Network (LCRN), an umbrella body representing London charities that collect and redistribute reusable items for resale.
A proposal was put together in 2009 for a funding application to be submitted to the London Waste and Recycling Board (LWaRB) for a reuse project to be established in the Authority's area and, in June 2010, LWaRB agreed to fund the project which was up and running by the end of 2011.
One of the main aims of the reuse project is to help achieve behaviour change within the WRWA area, in line with the established waste minimisation and recycling awareness ‘Recycle Western Riverside’ campaign. The reuse project will assist with changing residents’ behaviour by providing a tangible system that will prolong the life of goods and help residents to see the potential value in things they would usually discard.
It is expected that the promotion of a positive reuse message, consistent with the waste hierarchy, will also lead to increases in recycling participation and capture rates (initially the project has caused recycling rates to fall a little, as recyclable material is moved up the waste hierarchy).
It is calculated that, in time, the Reuse project may extract around 1,700 tonnes per annum from the Authority's waste stream, around 1,200 tonnes of which will ultimately be reused with the majority of the remainder being recycled.