Own Your Impact campaign

In 2022 we introduced the Own Your Impact (OYI) campaign across Surrey. The aim was to stimulate and sustain changes in attitude and behaviour and encourage Surrey residents to consider the impact of their actions in relation to waste reduction and recycling. Campaign phases focused on:

Food waste reduction and recycling.
Reducing contamination of recycling bins.

In addition our ongoing communications messages gave advice about reducing waste and highlighted other materials that can be recycled such as garden waste, textiles and small electricals.
So we could achieve our aim and reach as many residents as possible, we focussed our communications on a mix of outdoor advertising, print and digital with eye catching creatives that would include the OYI logo.

Post campaign

In March 2023, research carried out by independent company asked a representative sample of 600 residents questions about OYI and their answers provided us with some interesting findings.
OYI

Just under 30% of residents recognised the OYI logo; positive for a campaign in its first year.

Reduce, reuse, recycle (3 R’s)

Awareness of the ‘3 R’s’ was up from 17% in 2020 to 20%, but still a low number of people who understand that reducing and reusing waste is better than recycling it.

73% claimed to be ‘very’ or ‘quite’ interested in waste reduction and recycling – up from 64% in 2022.
Council websites were cited as one of the most popular sources of information about waste reduction and recycling. Press and radio had declined as reliable sources.

Recycling and contamination

There was a significant reduction in the proportion of people who don’t know how to dispose of certain items correctly. For example when asked if the following items could be recycled;

82% said ‘yes’ to shampoo bottles – compared to 76% in 2022 and 66% in 2020
81% said ‘yes’ to cleaned ketchup bottles – compared to 73% in 2022 and 62% in 2020.
71% said ‘yes’ to yoghurt pots – compared to 62% in 2022 and 47% in 2020.
69% said ‘no’ to cling film – compared to 62% in 2022 and 49% in 2020.
The two biggest motivators to recycle more, were saving money and knowing the impact it has on the environment.

Food waste

79% of the people who had seen the food waste campaign said it had increased their understanding of the importance of recycling their food waste.
43% of those aware of the campaign said that they have increased the amount of food they put in their food caddy as a result of the campaign.

Search tool and Surrey Recycles app

The search tool and app were promoted through the campaign phases which aimed to reduce contamination of recycling bins.

Of the 44% who were aware of the search tool, 39% said they had used it.
Awareness was higher amongst women and younger respondents.