Quantum PR's Blog

What a load of rubbish! By Adrienne Robins

PR Director Adrienne Robins

Printed in Secondary Commodities May 2013 issue

No-one expects The Daily Mail to publish positive recycling stories, but few will have anticipated the half-baked front page exposé that they unleashed last month, branding the UK’s municipal recycling programmes a sham.

I suspect that many within the sector have become anesthetised to the ignorance and disinterest displayed by a large proportion of our national media. With a few exceptions, most journalists only want to write about bin angst, collection woes, health scares, export scandals and the overall futility of the entire process. If they write about it at all.

Of course, from the inside we know that not everything in our industry is perfect. As with any sector (journalism included), there are some who ignore legislation and work to the lowest common denominator. We also know that quality continues to be an issue.

But to suggest that 12 million tons of household recycling is being collected by contractors who want only to make a fast buck on collections and who are happy to ship it to foreign landfill sites is plainly ridiculous.

I’m not going to de-bunk the figures (Peter Jones’s blog from 12th April does that, http://www.isonomia.co.uk), nor am I going to refute its claims (I’m sure we’ve all done that for ourselves). Instead I’d like to propose a means of collectively counteracting this damaging and uninformed misinformation.

Finding a strategy that encourages the British public to trust that their recycling is worthwhile is essential for the improvement of input quality. Because it’s those that either don’t believe or who can’t be bothered to engage who are contaminating loads delivered to MRFs, reprocessors and, dare I say, exporters across the country.

Of course, the Mail fuels the scepticism of these nay-sayers. That is to be expected. More worrying is the impact that it might have on previously committed recyclers who could turn away from the process, resulting in a worsening of quality.

So what should we do?

As an industry we must decide who is responsible for managing the overarching reputation of Recycling UK. There are many individual voices, opinions and experts at a trade level, but who is our industry figurehead challenging untruths levied nationally?

Both the CIWM and WRAP have the gravitas, but are they known beyond the boundaries of industry debate? If I were to talk to my non-industry friends and family about the CIWM or WRAP I don’t think they’d know who or what I was talking about. I’d like to see our sector bodies assuming a stance like that taken by the insurance industry’s Association of British Insurers who counteract misinformation and promote professionalism and advancement.

With a driving force behind the industry, the strategy must address the development and delivery of key messages, through traditional and social media channels, through a co-ordinated partnership approach with local authorities and directly with householders.

When it comes to media relations, there’s little we can do to change the Mail’s stance, but that’s not to say we shouldn’t try. Journalists can only use the information they’re given – and if we don’t give them information or answers, they’ll go to those who will supply them.

Our strategy must be to keep in their collective ears, telling them about our successes in a way that resonates with their readers in the hope that some will be regurgitated. This will give us a bank of good news credits to counteract the inevitable bad ones that will come in our direction.

When working as a journalist, I know that even if I didn’t always use the good news, the residual knowledge remained with me, making me question the validity of future allegations. Companies who kept their good news to themselves did not have the same benefit.

The strategy should also encompass a national programme for direct householder communication, delivered in partnership with local authorities. In an age when much interaction is online, research shows that improved trust and engagement is delivered on a one to one personal level. Rather than publish dry newsletters or hide recycling facts and figures on a website, Recycling UK should work with local authorities within communities to make householders aware of exactly what happens to their recycling and the importance of their actions.

Those who are willing should be encouraged to visit good local examples of reprocessors, MRFs and renewable energy plants, to see what happens to their recycled materials and to recognise the real challenges that everyone, as waste producers and managers, face.

Combined, this should go some way to counteract the damage caused by those who are simply seeking a front page scoop.