Danone and RECOUP join forces to inspire children to recycle plastic

Food company Danone has been working with plastics recycling group RECOUP to inspire school children to recycle their plastic bottles through the Danone Nations Cup Football tournament.

Danone sponsors the English Schools’ Football Association ESFA Danone Nations Cup, for children aged 11 and under. In total, 3,000 primary schools take part, with the winning team representing England at the Danone Nations Cup World Final, an international tournament involving 2.5 million children from 32 countries around the world.

This year’s tournament was used to educate children that plastic water bottles are a resource that can be recycled (focusing on the final ‘R’, rather than on either reduction or reuse). Children were shown what recycled PET bottles can be transformed into, including football shirts, with players at the national finals wearing football kits supplied by Nike that had been made from recycled PET.

Voting recycling bins asked participants a football-related question and at the regional event in Bath and the national final at Leicester City FC’s King Power Stadium, graphic displays and top trump cards showing the recycling journey from water bottle to football shirt helped to drive the message home.

Charlotte Broos, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager at Danone, said: “We wanted to take the opportunity of the players’ passion for football to educate them in a fun way about healthy eating, healthy hydration and taking care of the environment. We want to encourage them to recycle their plastic bottles correctly, by demonstrating recycled plastic can be used as a resource to produce new items, for example football shirts.”

More information about RECOUP can be found on the organisation’s website.

Resource Efficient Scotland launches ‘profit monsters’ campaign

Resource Efficient Scotland, a programme run by Zero Waste Scotland, has launched the profit monsters campaign to help organisations beat the ‘monsters’ that are attacking their profits.

Lights left on and dripping pipes are among the monsters that are being targeted for leading to wasted resources and lost profits. The campaign aims to tackle these monsters that can be easily fixed with careful monitoring and measuring of resource use.

Through the campaign, Resource Efficient Scotland is providing new materials to organisations, such as tracking worksheets, training webinars and a case study from building services engineering practice Max Fordham. Amongst the resources is a ‘measuring and monitoring’ guide that provides step-by-step techniques and methods to save money through better resource management. The guide provides advice on how to collect and analyse relevant usage data in order to identify where resources are being wasted.

Marissa Lippiatt, Head of Resource Efficiency at Zero Waste Scotland, said: “The profit monsters campaign is a fun way of highlighting what is a very serious issue for businesses in Scotland. Companies of all sizes all over Scotland are losing thousands of pounds a year through hidden but easily fixable resource inefficiencies. That’s why we’re providing technical support to help managers implement effective resource monitoring systems to stop these monsters from feasting on their profit margins.”

More information is available at the Resource Efficient Scotland website.

Giveacar raises over £2 million for charity

Social enterprise Giveacar, an organisation that encourages motorists to donate their old cars in aid of good causes, has announced that it raised over £2 million for over 2,500 UK charities.

Founded in 2010 by Tom Chance, who was just 23 at the time, the organisation encourages motorists to donate their old cars to be auctioned or sold for scrap, depending on their condition, and has recycled and sold over 22,000 vehicles from across the UK.

Owners donating their cars choose where to send the proceeds raised by their vehicles. To date, Giveacar has donated £210,000 to Cancer Research and £63,000 to Macmillan Cancer Support.

Giveacar has also run its own charitable projects, including raising money to build a school in Burma. It has also launched special appeals for the Gurkha Welfare Trust, Help Refugees and Brixton Soup Kitchen.

Rob Moon, Macmillan’s Head of Regional Fundraising, said: “As more people are living with cancer, our services are more in demand than ever and the £63,000 raised by Giveacar so far is enough to fund a Macmillan Nurse for over a year. We couldn’t do it without their support and the support of their customers.”

Patrick Church, Manager of Giveacar, said: “It is so encouraging that nearly 500 people a month decide to donate their old cars through Giveacar, and we’d like to thank them for helping us to grow during a tough time for the recycling industry.”

More information about the social enterprise can be found on Giveacar’s website.