How V Festival is making Every Can Count

Music festivals see lots of cans consumed, brought in by campers and sold onsite, making them the perfect fit for Every Can Counts, the programme that’s getting people recycling at work and on the go. As Festival organisers are keen to reduce their environmental footprint and raise the profile of the event’s green credentials, Every Can Counts provides a platform for this.

This video shows Every Can Counts at work at V Festival in Telford. The programme joined forces with contractors Ryans Event Cleaning and Panda Waste to collect, sort and process the cans onsite. Ryans and Panda set up can recycling points across the site. Every Can Counts were responsible for communicating the recycling message, providing highly visible and interactive promotions during the event to encourage festival-goers to do the right thing with their empty cans. Cans recovered in the waste stream were sorted onsite, with equipment provided by Novelis Recycling.

Around 130,000 cans, which equates to over two tonnes of aluminium and steel, were collected at V. A great achievement considering every can is infinitely recyclable without loss of quality and each can recycled substantially reduces the environmental footprint of the next one made.

Click here to watch the video: www.youtube.com/everycancounts

Why should we bother to recycle in the UK?

Facilities exist to recycle all of the nearly 9.5bn beverage cans consumed in the UK. However, though the drinks can recycling rate in the UK has come on leaps and bounds with over half of all cans consumed being recycled, there is more to be done. Metal is infinitely recyclable.  In fact, a drinks can could be back on the shelf as a brand new one in as little as 6 weeks,  resulting in up to 95% less energy consumption than it takes to make one from virgin material. This means a significant reduction in CO² emissions and a substantial cost saving to be made.

The government has announced that recycling targets for all aluminium and steel packaging for 2013-2017 will increase by 3% and 1% per year, respectively, from 2013. The current rates for 2012 are 40% for aluminium and 71% for steel. Whilst there is a lot of debate surrounding these targets, one thing is clear, recycling is hugely important.

If every can in the UK was recycled, around 1,080,387 tonnes of CO² emissions could be saved and more than 144,000 tonnes of steel and aluminium could be diverted from landfill*, all of which could go into making brand new products from metal – not just new cans. Aside from the environmental benefits of recycling, metal is the most valuable commodity that can be saved from the waste stream. Metal that is collected through recycling programmes can be sold on and there is strong evidence that some recycling programmes can pay for themselves and even generate a profit if they are run effectively.

Everyone has a significant part to play to make sure metal stays in the recycling loop, and it doesn’t matter if you are part of a big corporation, small business or an individual. If everyone tries to recycle the cans they use, there will be significant benefits to the environment as well as financial benefits.

*Figures based on calculations verified by WRAP

51 million drinks cans recycled in 2011 with Every Can Counts

Every Can Counts, the out of the home drinks can recycling programme co-funded by BCME, has announced its 2011 results. 51 million cans were collected from participating workplaces and ‘on the go’ locations in the UK over the past year. This equates to 774 tonnes of aluminium and steel saved from landfill and around 5,800 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions avoided as a result of the programme. The figure is equivalent to each employee from registered organisations recycling  five cans per month, an increase of 25% year on year.

The programme has come a long way in the three years since its launch. Originally developed as a trial programme to test the barriers and drivers to successful recycling outside the home, Every Can Counts has now established a model to help organisations that are working towards sustainability objectives, such as zero waste to landfill. The programme was cited as an example of best practice in the Government Review of Waste Policy in England 2011.

With a name and brand identity that works well in any language, the Every Can Counts programme has also now been successfully replicated in France, Austria, Romania and Hungary, with more European markets looking to follow suit.

To find out how to get involved with the programme visit www.everycancounts.co.uk. You can also follow Every Can Counts on Facebook and Twitter.

¹ Figures have been calculated using data provided by a representative sample of Every Can Counts programme users and calculated using methodology approved by the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP).

A Closer Look at the Beverage Market

The Nielsen Company watches the consumer retail market very closely, so we have invited them to share their latest insights on the beverage market.  Our guest blogger is Kate Spencer, Client Team Leader, The Nielsen Company

The statistics are out and the news is hardly surprising—growing chaos, longer hours and more stressful lifestyles are meaning consumers are looking for convenience wherever they can find it.  This blog post will focus on the beverage market and the growth its statistics have seen in the past year.

In the year to 30^th April, Carbonated Soft Drinks unit growth has been at 9%.  Specifically, cans remain the dominant pack type within the category, having 56% share and growing at just over 13%.

Although 266-383ml Cans have the highest unit sales, larger Cans of 384-620ml are seeing the strongest growth at 32% due to the success of larger can sizes within the Energy Drinks category sector. The Grocery Multiples continue to sell the majority of Carbonated Soft Drinks, with Cans outgrowing PET in this channel. Multipacks account for the majority of unit sales here, particularly 6 to 9 packs. However, single Cans have made a revival over the last year, increasing unit share to 12% of all Canned sales.  Energy Drinks have driven the increase in unit share of single cans, as much of the NPD in this sector is only launched in singles.

The Beer & Cider market has increased unit sales by just 2% in the year to 16^th April. Cans continue to be the favoured pack type over glass bottles, with over 60% unit share.  Canned Lager is the dominant sector of this category, accounting for almost half of all units sold. Whilst 4 pack Cans are the biggest pack type in Lager, 12/15 pack glass bottles have doubled in size over the last year & are now the 2^nd largest in unit terms.

As I said earlier, consumers are looking for convenience in beverages.  The can is a great place for them to find it.  It has been a strong year for the can and it seems likely that this strength will continue into the future.

27 million drinks cans recycled by Every Can Counts in workplaces

Every Can Counts, the away from home drinks can recycling programme funded by the leading European and UK drinks can manufacturers and aluminium and steel packaging reprocessors, has had a very successful second year.   It helped businesses to collect 27 million used aluminium and steel beverage cans for recycling across the UK in 2010. The figure is equivalent to each employee at organisations registered with the programme recycling four cans per month.¹

Every Can Counts calculates that by enabling over 394 tonnes of drinks cans to be recycled last year over 4000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions have been avoided.

Every Can Counts provides businesses with a branded recycling programme enabling them to launch and promote drinks can recycling. Over the past two years the programme has been embraced by over 400 organisations keen to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability and encourage their staff and customers to recycle more.

Organisations using the programme range across the public and private sector and from SMEs to FTSE-listed companies.  All are using Every Can Counts to help them achieve corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability objectives, including zero waste to landfill targets. Two years after its launch there are over 4000-branded collection points around the UK in offices, shopping centres, universities and tourist attractions.  Results from participating organisations show that although the programme specifically targets drinks cans, volumes of other recyclables also increase as a result of using the range of Every Can Counts-branded resources.

1. The data above has been calculated and verified using methodology endorsed by the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP).

For more information visit www.everycancounts.co.uk/about. You can also follow on Facebook and Twitter or watch videos on their YouTube channel.

A rubbish Christmas?

Happy New Year to everyone! Now we’re all back at work, Christmas is beginning to turn into a distant memory. So what are some of our memories from this hugely anticipated festive event? Opening cards, unwrapping presents, eating and drinking copious amounts perhaps…

As fun as this can be, from an environmental and sustainable perspective, Christmas can create an awful lot of unnecessary waste if you think about all the empty drinks cans, food packaging and wrapping paper alone. That said, I think the majority of us are getting significantly better on the recycling front. The environment and sustainability is certainly moving back up people’s agendas after the end of a year that saw much debate around the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, a heated debate around the landfill ban issue and the government’s packaging strategy.

From my own experience, my family, friends and neighbours were all definitely making far more of a concerted  effort to recycle all the waste. On a wider scale, people have even got impressively creative in their recycling – for example, one environmentally-conscious guy created the ultimate eco-friendly Christmas tree purely out of fizzy drink cans. His fabulous ‘fir’ has now proved so popular, he has quite the following on Facebook and MySpace. A little closer to home, one family has put us all to shame by putting just one rubbish bin out for collection in the whole of 2009! Very impressive when you consider the uproar that went on when councils tried to make some collections bi-weekly. This families’ achievements pay testament to what can be achieved through due diligence, passion and persistency as well as a genuine concern for the planet.

The only disappointment that I witnessed this holiday – and have subsequently read about in the nationals – was the lack of support from some of our councils when it came to taking away our hard-sorted, festive recycling. I noticed that my grandparent’s local council was throwing all the contents of both rubbish and recycling into the same lorry. Somewhat frustrating and de-motivating to those others who noticed the same thing.

If we’re going to seriously make a difference to the climate then we all need to buy-into making our lifestyles more sustainable and green with no exception. Hopefully this was a one-off blip that won’t happen again in this new, refreshingly green decade.