As climate change continues to impact our planet, there are more conversations and innovations taking place than ever before.

From the latest awareness campaigns to environmental policy updates, there’s always a lot to keep track of in the sector.

We’re excited to share our first environmental news round-up of 2023, picking some stand-out stories from the industry and collating them in this blog!

 

National WEEE recycling ad campaign goes live

A new national TV advert has been launched — by Recycle Your Electricals — to help raise awareness of recycling waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) and stop them from being landfilled.

The behaviour-change campaign is fronted by ‘HypnoCat’ and aims to highlight the importance of recycling, in a bid to stop some of the earth’s precious resources from being thrown away.

This is something very close to our heart here at UNTHA UK — having partnered with social media powerhouse, One Minute Briefs, twice to challenge its 32.3K-strong creative community to promote the recycling of bulky items, such as mattresses, and WEEE.

 

The EU’s clampdown on greenwashing

Research — led by the European Commission — uncovered that 53% of environmental claims on goods and services sold to the general public were “vague, misleading or based on unfounded information”.

The findings were the driver behind its newly proposed rules to protect consumers from greenwashing. As such, the Green Claims Directive states new requirements that businesses will need to meet to prove their environmental statements — with scientific evidence needed for the lifecycle of the product. 

 

Celebrating the first International Day of Zero Waste

Quarter one of 2023 sees the first ever International Day of Zero Waste take place (30 March).

The day emerged as a resolution from the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on 14 December, 2022, and its aim is to “[promote] sustainable consumption and production patterns, support the societal shift towards circularity, and raise awareness about how zero-waste initiatives contribute to the advancement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”

While these days play an important part in raising awareness and promoting sustainable behaviours, it’s vital that they are followed through during the rest of the year too, to help create long-term change.

 

New super glue-based plastic could replace polystyrene

We love reading about new innovations, and this project about recyclable plastic made from super glue certainly caught our attention. 

Free from fossil fuels and easy to recycle, it’s believed it could replace the commonly used polystyrene — often found in disposable cutlery and cups — accounting for 6% of plastic waste. It will be interesting to see where this conversation on ‘super glue plastics’ goes over the coming months.

 

Yarn-spinning zero waste textiles project in Chile

It’s estimated that 92 million tonnes of textile waste are generated each year — 60% of which end up in landfill. This material is also reported to do more harm to the environment than plastic.

Chilean social enterprise Ecocitex, was set up in 2020 and converts the country’s textile waste — from donations of unusable textiles — into new yarn that’s then sold to clothing manufacturers. With one tonne of waste generating 10,000 balls of 100-gram recycled yarn, it’s a great initiative to help combat the country’s burgeoning textile waste issue.

If you’d like to see more industry news updates, why not follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn? Alternatively, if you have any waste management queries, please contact our sales team by emailing sales@untha.co.uk or calling 0330 056 4455.