Recycling message hitting home

Latest research* carried out on behalf of Waste Awareness Wales indicates that the recent ‘recycle for Wales / ailgylchu dros Gymru’ television advertising campaign is helping the recycling message hit home with consumers across Wales. These findings further support last month's State of the Environment, 2008 bulletin issued by the Welsh Assembly Government which revealed people in Wales are now recycling more.

76% of respondents to the poll stated that they had seen advertising promoting recycling on the television - more than double the awareness of four years ago. 

An increased overall response rate to this fourth wave of quantitative research, of 23.2% compared with 19.1% in 2006 and just 14.7% four years ago, also suggests a greater public engagement in recycling issues.

Commenting on the research results, Dr Tim Peppin, Spokesperson for Waste Awareness Wales, said,

"Our annual quantitative research provides a useful indication of levels of recycling awareness and behaviour across Wales.  We’re delighted to see that our key messages are hitting home as double the amount of people are now aware of recycling messages on television compared with four years ago, as well as an increased number of people choosing to take part in the survey."

The research also revealed that over 53.1% of respondents now claim to recycle more than half of their total household rubbish compared to 29.7% four years ago. 

Dr Tim Peppin continued: "Despite the increase in recycling, around 1.8 million tonnes of municipal waste was collected by local authorities in Wales during 2006/07.  We need to make sure we keep up the momentum created by our advertising campaign and local activities, in order to achieve Wales’ national recycling/composting target of 40% by 2009/2010."

* The fourth wave of quantitative research for the ’recycle for Wales/ailgylchu dros Gymru’ advertising campaign was carried out on behalf of Waste Awareness Wales by Research and Marketing Plus during April 2008.   The research yielded an overall response rate of 23.2% (1,741 respondents)