Tag Archives: Recycle to Read

DC Thomson, Redan, and Egmont among kids’ publishers to back Wastebuster’s Recycle to Read scheme

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A group of the UK’s biggest names in children’s magazines, including DC Thomson and Redan Publishing has signed up to become founding members of the education, research, and recycling programme, Recycle to Read, a campaign aimed at creating a more circular economy for children’s toys.

This week will see the programme begin sign up for schools for pilot collections in the autumn term, and will be announcing additional partnerships from the book publishing, retail, and toy sectors over the coming weeks.

Recycle to Read is a new toy and tech recycling initiative launched by Wastebuster in association with EPPIC and Products of Change with the aim of providing a solution for recycling all plastic toys with ‘take back’ collections housed across retailers, schools and household recycling centres in the UK.

This week sees the programme welcome a host of founding members from across the children’s magazine publishing space, including DC Thomson, Story House Egmont, Immediate Media, Kennedy Publishing, Redan Publishing, and Signature Publishing.

Katy Newham, founder of Wastebuster, said: “This is a really exciting time for the programme, thanks to the children’s publishers we are able to get phase one off the ground and we have more and more members coming on board as we progress with our talks.

“The entire industry is beginning to understand the value of using toys as a force for good, when educating children and their families in how to live a more sustainable life. Schools who take part in the Recycle to Read programme will benefit from curriculum linked environmental education, based in real life learning and rewarded with books.

“Our collaborative approach and not for profit ethos, means that we can offer an environmental solution for all UK companies who produce toys, not just the ones with the deepest pockets and our investment in education and research, as well as infrastructure and clear packaging iconography, means that our solution has the potential to be far reaching and long-lasting.”

Helena Mansell-Stopher from Products of Change, said: “With only 18 per cent of plastics being recycled globally, and no recycling infrastructure currently in place in the UK to recycle toys, the recycle to read collective impact initiative will provide a solution to this.

“As a cross industry sector initiative, it will be business that will fund the set-up of the toy recycling infrastructure, with all profits going back in to the initiative as Wastebuster are a not-for-profit environmental educator. Products of Change is extremely proud to be working with the Wastebuster team to bring this solution to the industry.”

For more information on the programme please visit www.recycletoread.org or contact Emily Bell on 07715902681 email emily@wastebuster.co.uk.

Environment | “Toy recycling is key to educating children”: Wastebuster’s call to the industry

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An underwater photographer turned campaigner, conservationist, and educator on the environmental impact of climate change and pollution on the world’s oceans, Katy Newnham is about to embark on her latest venture to help change the course of history.

Last week, Wastebuster launched its Recycle to Read and Toy Take Back scheme, an initiative that has called on the toy industry to support in the efforts to find better and more sustainable methods of keeping the hard to recycle toy plastics out of landfills and out of the natural ecosystem.

Landing initially as a reward system for schools, the programme aims to engage consumers to recycle toys in selected schools and retailers across the country, and to reward those participating schools and communities with books and reading resources for children.

With toy and publishing firms already signed up to the initiative, Newnham is doubling down on her appeal to an industry to help educate children no environmental issues and taking a lead in the fight for a better, sustainable future.

Here, Licensing.biz catches up with Katy Newnham, founder of Wastebuster and the Recycle to Read programme, to learn more about it all.

Hi Katy, thanks for chatting with us. To start, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your role with Wastebuster. What is the Wastebuster mission?

I began my career as a commercial underwater photographer but having witnessed the impact of climate change and pollution on the oceans’ ecosystems, I moved into conservation and education. In 2006 I created Wastebuster, becoming the founder and CEO of the not-for-profit environmental education company.

With partners and supporters that have ranged from UN Environment to Pinewood Film Studios and Google, Wastebuster now supports over 20,000 schools, and 30,000 teachers worldwide. Specialising in delivering national and international, cross-sector education and awareness campaigns, designed to promote responsible consumption in primary aged school children.

In 2019, Wastebuster acquired The Pod, an education platform for schools and together they have become one of the largest providers of free education for sustainable development, to children all over the world. Our goal is to harness the power of entertainment to inspire social change.

Can you give us a bit of an overview of the campaigns and initiatives you guys have led and the kind of partners you have worked with?

We work with partners ranging from international corporates, local authorities, NGO’s, Governments and the UN to deliver education and awareness programmes that support development of the circular economy, in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Wastebuster has worked with WRAP since 2008, with the Wastebuster characters fronting the Recycle now Schools programme. For our 2012 Sport into Schools campaign, Wastebuster worked with the 2012 Olympic Committee, LOCOG, to use the increased interest in sport to initiate a UK wide textile recycling campaign that exchanged unwanted textiles for thousands of UK under resourced schools, for new sports equipment.

More recently Wastebuster have delivered circular economy education and school engagement programmes in South Africa and the Middle East, to support the development of new recycling infrastructure for hard to recycle plastics. This led Wastebuster to be instrumental in the formation of EPPIC (Extended Plastics Partnership for Innovation in Circularity) alongside DOW, Marks and Spencer and Ecosurety.

EPPIC is a new nationwide initiative that aims to create the infrastructure and mechanisms for the collection and recycling of ‘hard to recycle’ flexible and hard plastics. By bringing together a critical mass of key stakeholders we can deliver a functioning and profitable recycling system that benefits retailers and brand owners, publishers, recyclers, citizens and most importantly, the environment.

Currently, Wastebuster is leading the workstream on hard to recycle toy plastics, which has led to the formation of the Recycle to Read campaign, in association with Products of Change.

“We feel that toy recycling, is a key to educating children in the importance of recycling and living a more sustainable lifestyle.”

Can you talk us through the latest initiative – the Recycle to Read campaign and the Toy Take Back scheme? Who is this campaign targeting and how?

For the Recycle to Read Campaign, Wastebuster is working with EPPIC and Products of Change to bring together cross-sector stakeholders (toy companies, brand, owners, publishers, government) to develop an efficient, environmental, and sustainable infrastructure for recycling plastic toys, initially in the UK.

Initially, the programme will engage consumers to recycle toys (including electricals and textiles) in selected schools and retailers, and to reward participating schools and communities with books and reading resources to improve children’s literacy.

The Recycle to Read toy recycling programme unlocks the value of collaborative advantage. It provides an industry-wide infrastructure solution for recycling all plastic toys that consumers can engage with easily, whilst unlocking considerable social, economic and environmental benefits for the communities in which it operates.

The programme also provides research and industry insight into toy design for recyclability to support the move towards a more circular future for toy production.

Recycle to Read is more than just a recycling campaign and environmental educational programme, it is a collective impact programme and dynamic research project that provides a solution to a complex issue, through multi-stakeholder collaboration including industry, government, and consumers.

How are you guys now tapping directly into the children’s sector? And why is this such an important sector to tap into?

We feel that toy recycling, is a key to educating children in the importance of recycling and living a more sustainable lifestyle. The Recycle to Read junior board members (made up of six to 11-year-olds) made it very clear to us that they have a unique and emotional bond with their toys and understanding how they can help their toys to be reused or recycled when they are no longer wanted is a huge step in creating positive messaging around the concept of recycling.

Helena Stopher at Products of Change and the Children’s Magazine Forum have been instrumental in introducing us to the children’s sector and so far it’s been hugely rewarding working with such a positive and forward thinking industry.

Why is now the right time for toy companies to be joining this campaign? Why are they so integral to the initiative?

There is no time like now to change the future of the toy industry.

Many companies are already taking this issue seriously, especially in terms of packaging and design. Those who become members of the R2R campaign will be:

  • Helping to ensure the toy industry has a sustainable future and recycling solution
  • Proactively leading change ahead of government legislation
  • Supporting and contributing to new and better intelligence on the recyclability of toys and product design
  • Demonstrating responsibility for their products in the market giving assurance to their consumers
  • Able to utilise resources for the promotion of responsible consumption to your consumers

Acting as a responsible business sector is no longer a ‘nice to have’. It is a commercial necessity and environmental imperative. We can turn the dial for a whole generation, to promote and enable responsible consumption and production.

Let’s make this a good news story for industry, for children and for the planet. Let’s work together to do that.

The Recycle to Read campaign is financed purely by members fees and we are engaging with all brands, retailers, manufacturers, and publishers who market to children, to get behind this scheme in order to create a sustainable future for their businesses.

The programme is run on a “not for profit” basis and all members will have the opportunity to vote on how any potential profit from the value of recycled material is spent – be that more school resources, scaling up the infrastructure or reducing member fees.

What sort of reception have you had to it so far?

The sector is more than ready for this and we have had nothing but support so far.

Over 40 companies and 70 local authorities took part in a special round table webinar in November, to find out more about the campaign and we are delighted that Immediate Media and Smart Games have become founder members and are looking forward to be announcing a host of other members in the New Year.

What are you setting out to achieve, what is the mission statement for the Recycle to Read campaign and why is it more important than ever that the toy industry sits up and takes part?

Our goals are as follows:

  • To provide a new, robust, and economical infrastructure for the collection and recycling of toys, small WEEE and textiles in the UK including schools, retailers, household waste and recycling sites, businesses, community groups and more.
  • To engage, educate and encourage families to reuse and recycle more.
  • To supply industry with the research and science to create more sustainable products.
  • To create greater circularity within the UK toy industry, in a manner that can be replicated in other territories

We are working as a non-profit organisation to help the toy industry to come together to create a solution to its’ sustainability problem and help us to educate children in the importance of recycling. This is not going to happen overnight, we have a five year plan to get the UK to the point where toy recycling can be carried out via local household waste and recycling centres.

It’s a big goal and we can only achieve it if we all work together, for the common good.

How can toy companies get involved in the programme?

Visit our website www.recycletoread.org and sign up to the Webinar on 18th February, where you will be able to find out all you need about the campaign. If you don’t want to wait until then you can contact any of the members of R2R leadership team to discuss the programme in more detail – contact details are also on the website.

We will be working hard to get members fully registered by the end of February, so that we can launch phase one of the Recycle to Read Toy and Tech Take Backs in Schools in the summer term.

We can’t wait to get started!

Wastebuster and Products of Change call on industries to back Recycle to Read and Toy Take Back campaign

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The environmental awareness platform, Wastebuster has partnered with Products of Change to bring together a cross-sector of stakeholders to share knowledge, resources, and finance, to develop an efficient, environmental, and sustainable means of recycling plastic toys.

In partnership with EPPIC (Extended Plastics Partnerships for Innovation in Circularity) the programme will operate under the title Recycle to Read and will engage consumers to recycle their toys (including small electricals and textiles) and to reward participating schools and communities with books and reading resources to improve literacy.

The programme aims to provide an industry-wide solution for recycling all plastic toys while providing a platform for consumers to engage with easily. It will look to co-ordinate toy, tech, and textiles ‘Take Back’ collections in retailers, schools, and household recycling centres across the UK.

As it builds it will look to unlock considerable social, economic, and environmental benefits for the communities in which it operates.

The programme also provides research and industry insight into toy design for recyclability, to support the move towards a more circular future for toy production.

Collected plastic toys will be recycled into new products, such as construction boards, outdoor furniture, or playground equipment. Any plastic toys suitable for reuse will be recirculated by charity partners. The project will drive a nationwide call to action to ‘Recycle Right’ and promote the Toy Take Back linked to the Recycle to Read rewards programme across schools, retail, brand, toy, and publishing partners.

By bringing together a critical mass of cross-sector members, Recycle to Read can deliver a recycling system for toys that benefits its members, society and most importantly, the environment.

Developed by Katy Newnham, founder of Wastebuster, the Recycle to Read campaign and its Toy Take Back initiative is being billed as a ‘dynamic research programme’ and the “start of the creation of a circular and sustainable future for toy production.” The programme will be a multi-stakeholder collaboration that spans industry, government, and consumer networks.

Already 40 companies and 70 local authorities have taken steps to become a part of the programme, having taken part in a special roundtable webinar last month.

“We believe in the power of collective impact,” said Newnham. “By coming together, brand owners, toy manufacturers, retailers, publishers, recyclers, governments, schools, and consumers, we have the ability to work together to share intelligence and resources to create a workable, long-term, sustainable solution to plastic toy recycling.

“The real power of the Recycle to Read/Toy Take Back programme is in collective impact. We all have a role we could play to support this important project and the move towards not only creating a more sustainable future for the toy industry but educating and empowering a whole generation to act as responsible consumers.”

“There is no time like now to change the future of the toy industry. Acting as a responsible business is no longer a ‘nice to have’. It is a commercial necessity and environmental imperative. We can turn the dial for a whole generation, to promote and enable responsible consumption and production. Let’s make this a good news story for industry, for children and for the planet. Let’s work together to do that.”

Helena Mansell Stopher, director of Products of Change, added: “Products of Change is extremely proud to be working with Katy and her team to bring a fully circular solution to toy recycling in the UK, to be rolled out internationally over the coming years.

“For an industry to be part of actually building an infrastructure of this magnitude, to also be linked to rewarding schools to positively effect children’s literacy, is pretty phenomenal.”

Among those to have pledged their support to the campaign as founding members is Immediate Media.

“We hope it will bring the whole toy industry together to help create a recycling ecosystem for plastic toys at the end of their useful life and generate a momentum of its own once the word of the scheme spreads,” said Andy Marshall, group managing director of Immediate Media Co.

Peter Rooke, director of Smart Toys and Games, a member of Recycle to Read, added: “Sustainability in toys is so important for the toy industry.

“The single use and giveaway toy world is particularly under threat and is in the sights of regulators so change must come to that aspect of the industry quickly.

“I fully support the circular economy and for toys, one that is restorative and regenerative by design.”

For more details on the campaign (and to sign up to the next webinar), simply click on this link. You can also contact Simon, on Simon@recycletoread.org to find out how to get involved.