Make your metals matter

A new county-wide campaign, Metal Matters, is being rolled out across Buckinghamshire to encourage households to recycle their food and drink cans, kitchen foil, foil containers and trays, empty aerosols and metal screw tops.

With Britain using over 425,000 miles of household foil every year – enough to take you around the world 17 times! – and the average household using 600 food cans and 380 drinks cans each year, it’s important Buckinghamshire’s local residents know how to correctly recycle metal packaging.

The ‘Metal Matters’ campaign, run by the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro) is designed to improve education around metal packaging recycling. An item such as a food or drinks can is endlessly recyclable into any type of metal product: from a paper clip to a car engine component, an iron to a washing machine – or simply another food or drinks can.

To drive the campaign locally, Buckinghamshire Council has partnered with Alupro to organise leaflets to be distributed to over 200,000 homes across the county, with further material set to arrive six weeks later. Educational posters will be displayed at all nine Household Recycling Centres (HRCs), the campaign will be shared from @BucksCouncil’s social media channels, and a series of online resources will also be made available to local primary schools to encourage all of Buckinghamshire’s recycling-savvy residents to increase their metal recycling.

Cllr Bill Chapple OBE, Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change, commented:

“While our residents have already formed good recycling habits, we know we can do better. Through the Metal Matters campaign, we are working to educate and inform local residents about how and why it’s important to recycle metal packaging, and making it as easy as possible for our residents to do at home. The Metal Matters campaign has proven successful in lots of areas across the country and I expect it to succeed here too!

All metal packaging can be recycled and common household items such as food and drink cans, jam jar lids, metal screw tops, foil, empty aerosols, foil containers and takeaway trays can be disposed of in residents’ recycling bins.”

Rick Hindley, Executive Director at Alupro, added:

“Working in partnership with Buckinghamshire Council provides us with a fantastic opportunity to promote best practice recycling advice to householders. Over the past few years, the Metal Matters campaign has delivered significant results and increased the amount of metal packaging collected across the UK. We hope to continue raising awareness and get more local councils involved in the programme.”

For more information about recycling metals in Buckinghamshire, visit the Metal Matters campaign page