A 10-year partnership between Nestlé Waters UK, plastics recycling charity RECOUP, High Peak Borough Council and Alliance Environmental Services (AES), lead to recycling success in Buxton.

The long-term investment and collaboration delivered many initiatives including school education, roadshows, litter picking and eye-catching bins on the streets of the town.

The work was supported by resources developed and delivered to schools through the R-Generation initiative, educating young people about plastics and recycling. And in 2019 the original high street recycling bins were given a much-needed face-lift to make it easy to distinguish between ‘Recycling’ and ‘General Waste’.  The bright blue recycling bins now provide a splash of colour on Buxton High Street. 

RECOUP carried out an audit of the recycling collected over one weekend to assess the effectiveness of the scheme and found that 90% of the material was recyclable with a split of 79% either plastic bottles or cans, 11% ‘other’ recyclables and only 10% non-recyclable material was put into the bin.

The outcome of the on-street bins revamp supports conclusions also made by Hubbub in their Leeds By Example work that ‘simply changing the messaging and colour of the existing bin has a significant impact on the amount of recycling collected.’