Recycle Now unveils best ever Recycle Week results

Recycle Now, one of WRAP’s family of consumer facing brands, has revealed that its 2020 campaign, to encourage and motivate citizens to recycle more things, more often, has delivered its best results to date.

This year, Recycle Now tapped into the cultural shift of citizens’ new-found respect for the planet, acquired during lockdown.

By harnessing the mood of the nation, it achieved 26 million digital impressions and a 185 million opportunities to see, hear or read about Recycle Week through PR - up from 22 million and 59 million respectively last year.

Under the strapline ‘Together, We Recycle’, the campaign thanked the nation – for continuing to recycle, despite all that has happened this year. 

For the first time ever Recycle Now secured external funding from 15 major commercial donors, enabling them to enhance the campaign and take it to the next level.

At the heart of the campaign was the ‘hero’ film; a hard-hitting emotive film which celebrated the unsung heroes of recycling – our collection workers. Totalling over 1.5 million views in seven days, Recycle Now says “it captured the mood of the nation.” 

This was complemented by a huge range of activities during the Week, generating impressive engagement figures.

The country was turned green as iconic landmarks across England and Northern Ireland were lit up to outwardly demonstrate their support of Recycle Week.

These included the London Eye, The Blackpool Tower (pictured), Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Belfast City Hall and Enniskillen Castle, among many others.

The City of London’s Tower 42 displayed the Recycle Now ‘swoosh’ for the whole week.

Marcus Gover, WRAP CEO, said: “I am absolutely delighted with the results of this year’s Recycle Week, which has been a triumph despite the difficulties posed by the pandemic.

“Planning the 2020 campaign was tricky for the Recycle Now team, with so many unknowns. Earlier this year we really had no idea what would be happening in the UK – or indeed the world - by the end of September. 

“We realised that we would have to remain as flexible as possible to make sure our messages would still resonate with citizens and ultimately drive recycling behaviour change. 2020 has been our most successful campaign to date.”

Next year’s Recycle Week will take place from 20 – 26 September 2021.