Hi, my name is Beth Pownall, and I work as an Environment and Waste Management Technician at Leicestershire County Council. Half of my time you’ll find me working in the Waste Initiatives Team, and the other half in the Carbon Reduction Team. My role is all about educating and engaging Leicestershire residents on a variety of topics, but in the Waste Initiatives Team, I work most closely on the topics of food waste prevention and recycling.
I'm writing this blog because it’s Recycle Week! For the past few weeks, I have been working on coordinating the campaign in Leicestershire, so I wanted to tell you all about it.
Each year, Recycle Now organise a national week-long campaign called Recycle Week. They provide the theme, the graphics and the date and we distribute the message in our local area. This year’s campaign theme is ‘Rescue Me – Recycle’, all about recycling those items that we commonly miss out of our recycling bins. These items are:
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Dee Dee the deodorant
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Rey the plastic trigger spray (remove the spray head)
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Yogi the yoghurt pot
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Fitz the perfume bottle (remove the lid)
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Hube the toilet roll tube
I think my favourite character which Recycle Now have created for this year’s Recycle Week is Dee Dee. I’ve attended many events and talks whilst working in this role at the council and so many people are unaware that deodorant spray cans (if empty) can be recycled in their kerbside recycling bins. Metal is a valuable resource and it’s great to see this message being shared wider in this campaign.
Throughout the week, the posts you see on social media have been written up by myself, including the Lesswaste article all about Recycle Week 2024. Each year we also organise roadshows in Leicestershire communities to help residents with their recycling. The Waste Initiatives Team will be attending a few places this week; a school earlier in the week and events in Harborough, Hinckley and Bosworth later in the week.
To find out where we’ll be, visit our Facebook page: Leicestershire Recycling.
To book a talk or workshop visit our Lesswaste community page: Talks and Education.