Your Recycling Pays

Action Areas: Biodiversity loss/ Carbon emissions/ Waste

The Recycling Community Investment Fund (RCIF) was created from the money saved by diverting food from landfill.  This funding was used to develop a package of unique initiatives aimed at proactively protecting and enhancing our natural environment, whilst addressing all three pillars of sustainability.

The fund is aimed at demonstrating very practially to residents that 'Your Recycling Pays' by reinvesting savings from recycling directly back into local community projects.  By seeing benefits 'on their doorstep' residents are  encouraged to continue making the effort to recycling and compost their waste.    

Individual projects supported included:  litter (litter picking packs and beach boards), waste (big belly bins), education (schools recycling, summer scheme projects, Forest Schools and CLEAR), village facelifts (minor works), home safety (for the vulnerable), local businesses (compostable packaging) and Refillution.

The Council worked with other external stakeholders such as Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful to enhance the provision of the Live Here Love Here grant scheme in the Borough and with Citizen Sea to promote the message about tackling singe use plastics.  

The operational success of these projects was only as successful as the communication about them. The core message 'Your Recycling Pays' was delivered through project branding and well communicated on various platforms - social media. online, newspapers, radio and TV.

The RCIF has delivered multiple social, economic and environmental benefits for the Borough.  

Watch our 'Recycling Community Investment Fund' video to learn more about this scheme.