Media Information
The Islington Woman's Institute Supports Aerosol Trade Assocation - BAMA - In Its Recycling Message
27/03/2007
The formidable force of the Women’s Institute has been called upon to reinforce the importance of recycling aerosols.
Two members of the Islington WI, (Sarah Nightingale and Gemma Woznicki) recently took part in an aerosols recycling photo-shoot for an advertisement scheduled to appear in the April issue of the Association’s magazine. The magazine is distributed to over 200,000 WI members in England, Wales and the Channel Islands. The advertisement, which shows the two members mixing an oversized ‘cake’ of empty metal cans and placing an empty aerosol on the top depicting ‘the cherry on the cake’, aims to help raise awareness amongst its readership that empty aerosols can be recycled along with other metal packaging waste.
Sue Rogers, British Aerosol Manufacturers’ Association (BAMA) Director, says: “Recycling has been an important issue for BAMA for many years. 89% of consumers use aerosols in the home and yet our recent research shows that half of these users don’t know that their empty aerosols can be recycled. They just don’t realise how simple it is – all they have to do is make sure they have used them up; take off the cap and include them with their food and drinks cans for recycling. We are delighted that the WI are taking our message on board and taking part in spreading the message amongst its large membership base.”
BAMA has had great success in persuading local authorities to take aerosols over the years with over 75 per cent now collecting and recycling empty aerosols, which is encouraging as five years ago it was estimated that only 7% of aerosols were being collected for recycling in the UK.
The trade association provides help and support to all local authorities about recycling empty aerosols by providing free information and literature via its resource pack on its website http://www.recycleaerosols.co.uk/ Materials can be downloaded and then customised for each local authority. The literature includes artwork for labels for recycling boxes as well as supporting text and illustrations for promotional literature and can-banks. Can bank labels are also available free of charge from BAMA by emailing enquiries@bama.co.uk.
Each year consumers in the UK use around 600 million aerosols, which is equivalent to about ten cans per person; in total this represents over 30,000 tonnes of reclaimable high grade metal that can be recycled. About two thirds are steel, the remainder aluminium. When recycled together with other steel or aluminium containers, empty aerosols make a valuable contribution to achieving the local authority and national recycling targets as well as meeting the compulsory reduction in landfill. For more information on recycling empty aerosols visit http://www.recycleaerosols.co.uk/
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