Hubbub

Look mum, I made it! 🙌 I got invited on the 𝘛𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘙𝘶𝘣𝘣𝘪𝘴𝘩 podcast! 🎙️ James Piper & Robbie S. have done something super smart: they've realised that loads of people are interested in what happens to all the stuff we make and use. Loads more people than just those who work in waste, recycling or the circular economy. So they've made a really funny, engaging and informative podcast series about it: Talking Rubbish. And it's becoming a hit: New & Notable on Apple, featured in the Guardian - all that jazz. So who knows why they had to go and ruin it by having me on. 🤷♂️ But anyway: this week's episode features me talking about: • Bins • More Bins • Community fridges • How to build trust in the recycling system • My (evil) superpower that will save the planet ...and lots more. Give it a listen - and you could also win a prize including a copy of 0898 Dave's lost novelty electro hit 'Rubbish Monkey' on 7", from my own collection. It has fetched over £1 online but you could get it FREE. Unbelievable. 🎧 Listen here: https://lnkd.in/ddTVThMv * Mighty Reds = Forest, not any of these other pretenders 🌳😉 ++ P.S. Follow me - Alex Robinson - for insights on environmental change, leadership and more. I'm CEO of environmental charity Hubbub. We create campaigns with business, government and civil society that inspire environmental action. #environment #sustainability #waste #recycling #circulareconomy

Is there a reusable cup in your cupboard, right now? 🤔☕️     No, we’re not spying on you... our insight shows that most of us own a reusable cup (3 in 4), but only a third of us say we use it at least once a month. Crazy, right?  Enter: Bring Your Own Cup.   Our new campaign is all about reminding people that bringing their own cup is worth it, every time. We want people to feel motivated to bring their cup whenever they're getting a drink out. Why? Because when you #BYOC:   🗑️ It’s less waste  💸 You could save money on your drink to go  🧢 Tall. Short. Plain or Glittery. Matching your outfit or not, your cup gives your drink a personal touch.  It’s a no brainer, right?  And to reward people who bring their own cups, we’re going on the road. At the #BYOC pop-up, we’ve got the free coffee and you’ve got the cup! Come with your cup to grab a free coffee and let’s have a chat: 📍 Cardiff: Monday 4th – Thursday 7th, Hayes Place (near Cardiff Library)  📍 Manchester: Monday 11th – Thursday 14th, Trinity Square  📍 London: Monday 18th – Thursday 21st, Meridian Square (near Stratford station) #BYOC #ThingsAreLookingCup  *T&Cs apply, customers responsible for their own serveware: https://lnkd.in/dAxenSwh 

Know who your office Christmas elves are this year? 🎅🏼 We’ve got an early present for them!  🤫 A bundle of sustainable festive ideas for your workplace, with all of the thinking and planning already done, so it's as easy as possible to apply them with your team. Get pre-written email templates, checklists, and posters all ready to lift and use! All you have to do is press send/print and you’re off on your way to a more sustainable Christmas. Get the whole bundle here: bit.ly/secondhandsanta

Creating grassroots change is the goal, but how do we get there? Sometimes, with a pumpkin! For #EatYourPumpkin, it all started over a decade ago in Oxfordshire, tackling food waste at Halloween with pumpkin soup. In 2015, 21 million pumpkins were thrown away at Halloween, and in 2023 it was 12.2 million! So how did we encourage that spooky shift? A big part of the campaign is our Eat Your Pumpkin community grants. Ingredients include (cauldrons at the ready):   🎃 110 creative community groups   🎃 Pumpkins, lots of them  🎃 Small grant giving that's flexible and places funding in the hands of local groups (who know what they’re doing and just need some cash to get on with it!)  🎃 Downloadable, sharable resource packs with step-by-step guides to putting on a pumpkin event   🎃 Recipe books with creative and kid-friendly ways to eat pumpkin  One thing lots of our projects have in common, from the Community Fridge Network to our Nature Hubs, is that groups on the ground are already doing great work. They know what their local area needs and how to do it. So, by building connections and collaborating rather than duplicating we can turbo charge the impact for both the local community and the environment! Got an idea about how this approach could work in a different area? We'd love to hear it! Let us know below or get in touch at [email protected] #EatYourPumpkin

Everyone loves free stickers ✨ But these ones do more than just decorate.  These sticky little sheets are helping fight food waste nationwide! How?  Well, our annual #EatYourPumpkin campaign aims to tackle food waste by inspiring the millions of pumpkins bought each Halloween to be eaten too. And since last year, we shifted our ask from ‘carving and cooking’ to ‘crafting and cooking’. Decorating instead of carving means the entire pumpkin stays fresh and can be eaten after – easier and more impactful!  This year we’re debuting an exciting collaboration to help people make that switch to decorating. These 🎃 limited edition pumpkin decorating sticker packs 🎃 will be available for free in every Starbucks store across the UK in the lead up to Halloween. You can just pop in, pick up a pack for free at the till, and boo(m), you’re ready to make your spooky season a bit more sustainable.  The scale and accessibility of these decorating packs is a really exciting thing to trial – we’ll hopefully hear and see positive feedback from them! So; For helping to socially norm pumpkin-decorating on a nationwide scale, making themselves both incredibly physically and financially accessible, and being pretty darn cute, these stickers got ‘stuck’ with this month’s #EmployeeOfTheMonth.  Want a free sticker? They’re only available this weekend 25th-27th October, and there’s only 150 at each store – so get yours quick!😉

How can you encourage sustainable behaviour change when it’s something we have baked into tradition? Bake it into muffins instead. 😳 Hear us out!  At Hubbub we know change can only happen when everyone is willing and able to make choices that are good for the environment. So, we collaborate with people at an individual level, as well as businesses and communities, to make environmental choices easy and fun! Here’s how that plays out with pumpkins…

What’s Halloween got to do with climate change? First off, they’re both scary 👻   There's a frightening amount of food waste at Halloween, with as much as £41.3 million of pumpkin at risk of being binned this year (Hubbub 2024 polling) But there’s huge (pumpkin shaped) potential for Halloween to reduce food waste and be more environmentally friendly. We’ve been inspiring people to do this for over a decade with our Eat Your Pumpkin campaign! Is it working? The gourd news is: 🎃 3 in 5 people (59%) now know you can eat your carving pumpkin 🎃 Last year 10m fewer pumpkins ended up uneaten (in 2022 22.2m went to waste, in 2023 it was 12.2m) 🎃 People who saw our campaign in 2023 were three times more likely to eat their pumpkin So, this year we’ll be building on these successes and working towards the aim that no pumpkin goes uneaten. Can we all take steps towards enjoying a more sustainable Halloween, without scaring away the fun of the season? At Hubbub we think absolutely! What do you think is most important to focus on when speaking about sustainability around Halloween? Who else is doing great work in this space?

What makes a good bin? 🗑️ Steve Jobs obsessed over design details that led to the iPhone, iPad and MacBook. At Hubbub, we obsess over the humble bin.  People spend less than 2 seconds at a bin. So how do you make those seconds count to get more rubbish in bins, and in the correct bins too? Littering is a big problem, costing the UK government over £1 billion a year to clean up (Keep Britain Tidy). And it isn’t a problem you can solve with demands – in fact areas with harsh anti–litter messaging actually see higher rates of litter!  On top of that, there's the question of recycling bins and collecting the right materials... Here are our 4 top tips: 🚮 Be bold   Make your bins stand out. Surveys throughout our trials show that one of the key reasons for littering or not recycling was that there wasn’t a bin nearby (even though in many cases, there was!). 🚮 Keep it simple  Don’t overload the bin with messaging. Keep it to a sentence or two max. If drafting a design, see where your eye is naturally drawn to. 🚮 Shape matters  When collecting plastic bottles and cans for recycling, use a circular shaped opening. In Edinburgh, we saw a 20% drop in contamination in the recycling just from this. Make sure your general waste bin opening is large enough to fit all other kinds of rubbish. 🚮 Bins buddies  Always pair recycling bins with a general waste bin or use a dual bin to reduce contamination. People are wired to take the path of least resistance, and this means they often won’t sort waste at one bin and then walk to another. What does that look like in practise? Check out five of our favourite Hubbub-designed bins. #RecycleWeek #RecycleWeek2024

⚠ 5 things you might not know you could recycle ⚠ - Bleach bottles  - Empty deodorants and hairspray aerosols  - All batteries and electrical cables   - Used cooking oil   - Old Hubbub campaigns – wait what? Oh yes 😌 This summer we launched our neat streets website, a hub full of tried, tested, and free resources from our most successful littering and recycling campaigns.  You can find:   - Campaign materials to take and use   - Step-by-step campaign guidance  - Case studies and learnings  - A new grant fund offering £10,000 to local authorities to introduce a campaign in their area. 💷 If you’re looking for inspiration, ideas or projects to explore for #RecycleWeek, then head over to neatstreets.org.uk

What does Jessie J know about clothing durability? 🧢 Quite a lot, it turns out. Our Worn Out study with Primark and the School of Design at the University of Leeds found there's no clear link between price and how long clothes last. Forget about the price tag - caring for your clothes is just as important. Building on this research, our Laundry Lowdown project explored how to: ➡️ Educate people on how to properly care for their clothes, to maximise their lifespan  ➡️ Push for more durable clothing with clothes designed to last Last week, Primark launched their new durability framework, inspired by research from WRAP, Hubbub, and the University of Leeds. This framework outlines how retailers can make clothes last longer, creating a more sustainable fashion industry. 👖 By working with Primark and UK consumers on the Laundry Lowdown, we found easy ways to extend garment life. Retailers can provide:  ➡️ Visual prompts (like a vinyl sticker for a washing machine or tips in delivery packaging) to nudge people to keep their clothes in top shape  ➡️ In-store and online resources to help shoppers decipher care instructions  ➡️ Accessible repair services to make garment repairs affordable and convenient for everyone Read our full report for project insights and industry recommendations ⬇️ To find out more about our work on responsible fashion – follow us @Hubbub – or subscribe to our business bulletin hubbub.org.uk/newsletter 💌