One Minute Brief of the Day: Create posters to encourage people to think about what could happen if bulky ‘waste’ was properly recycled #WasteNotWantNot #GlobalRecyclingDay

When it comes to creating campaigns designed to inspire others to take better care of our planet, the OMBLES know how to nail a brief. But what about when tasked with educating others around how even the bulkiest wastes can be recycled with ease?

To mark Global Recycling Day, we’re looking for visuals (be it posters, gifs, or scribbles on paper) to depict how one person’s trash could be another person’s treasure. Think an old lifeless mattress, or a washing machine faulty beyond repair. Such bulky, awkward waste streams could be considered nothing more than rubbish, but they can be broken down into their component parts for reuse and recycling. Valuable materials, from metals to plastics, and fibres to foam, could remain ‘locked’ inside these redundant products, if they’re not shredded and ‘freed’ for future use.

There’s more to the old adage #WasteNotWantNot than people might think.

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One Minute Brief of the Day:

Create posters to encourage people to think about what could happen if bulky ‘waste’ was properly recycled.

Tweet entries to @oneminutebriefs, @UnthaUK & @GlbRecyclingDay with the hashtags #WasteNotWantNot #GlobalRecyclingDay.

Prize: £200 cash plus a box of eco goodies.

About today’s brief:

There’s no getting away from the perceived difficulties and costs associated with sending bulkier items for recycling, such as mattresses, old IT equipment and washing machines etc.

It’s this lack of education is what leads to fly tipping. And, if these items are just dumped, such elements are completely lost from the value chain. Within a mattress for instance, is metal, foam, and so much more that can be sent for recycling and reuse if the mattress is broken down and the component parts segregated. In an old laptop which is beyond repair there are various precious metals, plastic and so on. It’s about breaking something down to start again.

 In other words, materials that still have plenty of useful life left in them could simply go to waste if they are thrown away. This is unnecessarily costly, harmful to the environment, and means we have to use needless amounts of raw materials to make new stuff.

That’s why we’re so excited to see all the different interpretations of the brief from the OMBLES in order to share this important message and bring it to life!

The winning entry will highlight how many valuable materials would otherwise remain locked in ‘waste’ if not ‘freed’ for recycling. There’s still life in the old dog yet!

 Get creative and enter as many times as you wish for the chance to win.

What’s the issue?

Part of the problem lies with people not knowing what can and can't be recycled locally, the massive disparities between councils – often resulting in the wheelie bin sticker of shame. 

There’s no getting away from the perceived difficulties and costs associated with sending bulkier items for recycling, such as mattresses, old IT equipment and washing machines etc. 

It’s this lack of education is what leads to fly tipping. And, if these items are just dumped, such elements are completely lost from the value chain and end up in the waste stream unless shredding ensues.

Find out more here:
https://www.untha.co.uk/waste-shredders/bulky-waste/

Who’s setting today’s brief?

UNTHA UK is a manufacturer of industrial shredders that can process almost anything. It’s our mission to ensure valuable resources are recycled or used for energy recovery, rather than ending up as waste. We genuinely care about the environment and want more people to, too.

As a B2B brand which usually only talks to our peers (rather than the public) we feel this is a topic that needs to be discussed about more – hence why we’re enlisting the help of the OMBLES to help us spread the word and make recycling cool. (Which we already know it is, of course). 

Fun fact: UNTHA’s pride and joy ‘Gary the Gobbler’ made a cameo appearance in the recent Channel 4 series, The Fantastical Factory of Curious Craft. No, we’re not joking.