The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), has launched its first national television advertising campaign, with a 30-second advert airing across Sky channels from today.

The “Rescue Me, Recycle” campaign personifies commonly discarded household items - giving toilet roll tubes, perfume bottles and aerosols human traits, emotions and voices. The opening advert follows the “dreams” of a discarded toilet roll tube and the fate it faces if not recycled, emotively reframing recycling as an act of rescue rather than a chore.

WRAP secured £200,000 in advertising through Sky Media’s Zero Footprint Fund, a £2m programme that provides media value to organisations working on environmental change. WRAP won the fund’s Catalyst Category, which supports charities and not-for-profits that face barriers to scaling awareness. A panel of industry experts across advertising, creativity and sustainability assessed live pitches from 18 shortlisted organisations before selecting the winners.

Confidence, not awareness

WRAP’s research, released alongside the campaign, found that while 89 per cent of UK households regularly recycle, 79 per cent admit to throwing away at least one item that could have been recycled. The average household typically misses two to three recyclable items per collection, and just nine per cent of people said they felt “very confident” about what can and cannot be recycled.

Meg Jordan, creative strategy director at Among Equals which devised the campaign, said it was designed to address the confidence gap. “People know they should recycle - 89 per cent already are,” she said. “The 79 per cent who are still binning recyclables aren’t ignorant, they’re uncertain. Behavioural science tells us that empathy is one of the most powerful drivers of action, so rather than hit people with more information, we made them feel something.”

The campaign launches following the recent introduction of Simpler Recycling in England, which requires all local authorities to collect the same core set of recyclable materials from households. David Wilson, communications director at WRAP, said the advert “reminds people everywhere that they can play their part in using our precious resources more sustainably.”

“WRAP is on a mission to embed circular living into every boardroom and every home, and we are incredibly grateful to the Sky Zero Footprint Fund for giving us the opportunity to scale and help give even more recyclable items a second life,” Wilson added.

The advert is the first element of a broader push through WRAP’s long-running Recycle Now campaign. Additional “Rescue Me” characters will be introduced during this year’s Recycle Week, running from 14 to 20 September.

WRAP estimates that if every UK household recycled one additional toilet roll tube per week, the energy saved would be enough to power more than 26,000 homes for a year. A larger burst of the TV campaign is planned later in the year to coincide with Recycle Week, using Sky’s data-led targeting capabilities to reach relevant audiences at scale.