New recycling campaign answers the question “To bin or not to bin?”

Did you know that 66% of UK households are confused and uncertain about how to correctly recycle or dispose of one or more items?

A new campaign has launched across Merseyside and Halton this week that targets householder’s confusion about recycling - and aims to reduce ‘contamination’ in recycling collections.

Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority have launched Recycle Right, with a series of roadshows at Tesco stores across the region. Recycle Right takes a different approach and information contained within the campaign is common across all of the district councils in Merseyside and Halton.

It supports all the council partners in their work with residents to encourage better and increased recycling, and provides a consistent message across the region on what to put in which bin and why.

A brand new website www.recycleright.org.uk aims to the ‘first port of call’ for any recycling question – whether that’s milk cartons or mattresses.

Carl Beer, Chief Executive of Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority said: “Recycle Right is a campaign that we’re confident will start to solve the eternal question of ‘to bin or not to bin? ’. We want to tell people living in Merseyside and Halton what’s recyclable and what’s not - and provide some guidance on what bin to use or how to dispose of waste safely. “

The facts about our recycling habits make for interesting reading:

· The wrong kind of items in recycling collections causes contamination which reduces the quality of good recycling - and 16% of the items in the average Merseyside and Halton recycling bin shouldn’t have been there!

· Currently across the UK, 49% of all households are disposing of a potentially recyclable item in their general waste collection.

· In Merseyside and Halton, the last waste analysis showed that 24% of the average general waste bin could have been recycled.