Recycle Week 2016 “Bad bathroom habits” Summary report

Objectives for Recycle Week & rationale Target audience for Recycle for London is younger residents, aged 18-34, who are likely to be patchy recyclers and notoriously difficult to engage. The aim was to encourage greater recycling of bathroom items (the Unusual Suspects), which are often overlooked. Objectives: Increase awareness of Recycle for London amongst London residents through targeted media coverage Increase traffic to the Recycle for London website Increase followers on Recycle for London social media platforms

Summary For Recycle Week 2016, Recycle for London focused on the theme of ‘bad bathroom habits’. The theme was chosen following a poll of more than 2,000 Londoners, which showed that not recycling from the bathroom is considered a bad bathroom habit. We launched the week with media sell-in of the story, boosted by a pop-up confessional booth at Southbank and Brixton, in which members of the public could confess their worst bathroom habit. In return, they received a branded toilet roll on which information about recycling from the bathroom was printed. In total we engaged with over 300 people over both days. 13 London boroughs received funding from us totalling £104k to enable local engagement activity. This included stalls at events and community spaces, liveried recycling trucks and outdoor advertising.

Key statistics 15 articles in national, London-wide and local press total circulation of approx. 33.5 million 45, 127 people reached on Facebook (an uplift of 13,000%) Facebook engagement up 5,000% 91 new followers on Twitter Nearly 1/3 of month’s website sessions occurred during Recycle Week

Media coverage - results

Media coverage – some highlights One in ten ‘have split with partner over bad bathroom habits’… In addition, 61 per cent considered not recycling items such as shampoo bottles, toothpaste boxes, toilet paper rolls and bleach bottles a bad bathroom habit that needed addressing.

PR activity

Media sentiment South London Press Loved the story as they feel so much news on recycling is ‘po-faced’. They said the angle of the story made it very easy to write a piece for Recycle Week Southbank event (Monday 12 September) Very good levels of engagement and feedback. Lots of pictures taken for sharing on Twitter, and successful professional photos (with one featured on London News Online, the major London news portal that aggregates numerous borough wide outlets) Brixton event (Wednesday 14 September) Lots of visitors said they loved the idea – particularly amongst key targets (e.g. a group of young friends who were all happy to take part and took a group photo). At several stages we had a queue of people outside the portaloo waiting to write up their confessions. People were also impressed by the branded toilet roll as it had such useful information on it and asked often for additional toilet rolls to share with family and friends. A good number of people said they had not realised many items listed on the toilet roll could be recycled.

Facebook stats

Twitter stats 91 new followers over the week NB: positive sentiment spikes coincide with pop-up events

Borough engagement activity NB: we are awaiting borough evaluation reports on localised activity

Outreach and advertising

Conclusions This was the most effective social media campaign run by RfL since November 2015, with lots of interaction with the boroughs during the week All participants across London and beyond shared content to make #RecycleWeek trend on Twitter for the first time ever! Engagement with London residents through the pop-up events was very well-received, with plenty of interest and great conversations about recycling from the bathroom We achieved a wide range of (mainly print and on-line) media pick-up – particularly local titles who engaged with localised content which came out of local splits from survey results