Recycle Week 2023 theme unveiled - The Big Recycling Hunt

The campaign will have two distinct elements, firstly for schools; encouraging the country’s children to take part in fun activities throughout Recycle Week. Secondly, a focus on  local authorities, partners and brands to share the central message of this year's campaign..

• Recycle Week takes place between 16^th-22^nd October 2023.
• This year’s theme - The Big Recycling Hunt focuses on “missed capture”– items that can be recycled but are commonly missed in the home.
• Recycle Now, which organises the week, wants people to hunt out these missed opportunities.

Craig Stephens, Senior Campaign Manager, WRAP, “This year’s campaign will be bigger and better than ever. We want to bring an element of fun to recycling with a focus on the people who are going to be impacted the greatest if we don’t up our game – children. This year we’ll be reaching out to more than 30,000 schools and teachers to get children involved in The Big Recycling Hunt, with a special toolkit and resources available to help them get involved”.

The campaign will ensure people know that there are more items that they can recycle by highlighting some of the most commonly missed captured items, including: -

• Plastic pots, tubs and trays
• Plastic detergent/cleaning bottles
• Shampoo/conditioner bottles
• Aerosols
• Food cans/tins

Partners and Schools

Primary schools in England and Northern Ireland should sign up now for The Action Pack to receive all the latest information and details of how they can get their schools to take part.  All this information will be available towards the end of the Summer.

Recycle Now is urging its non-school partners including local authorities, brands and retailers to get behind the Big Recycling Hunt. Recycle Now will be providing these partners with a separate toolkit that will include everything they need to get involved to target their own audiences. These partners should sign up to WRAP’s e-newsletter to receive all the latest information. This toolkit will also be available towards the end of the Summer.

In Wales, the next phase of the Be Mighty campaign will engage citizens and partners during the week.

Twenty and counting

Over the last 20 years, Recycle Week has marked some truly fantastic moments including working with many household names such as Denise Van Outen, JJ Chalmers and Olympic swimmer Mark Foster.

It has repeatedly turned the nation green with key buildings and monuments lit up green in support, including The London Eye, Tower 42, Blackpool Tower, Gateshead Millennium Bridge and Titanic Belfast.

It’s also showcased plenty of high-profile activities from supporters, including a World Record in recycling in 2007 which saw Steel reprocessor and then Recycle Week sponsor Corus, organise the record attempt with strongman John Evans successfully balancing 429 full metal cans on his head – around 27 stone in weight!

We’re hoping to see more exciting events from our partners this year.