Recycle Lincoln!

https://www.change.org/p/help-lincoln-double-its-recycling-rate-by-2020

Recycle Lincoln! Have created a petition on change.org aiming at doubling the recycling rates in Lincoln by 2020. I am examining them because they have also established that recycling is a problem in Lincoln, and the rates can definitely be increased. They aim to increase the recycling opportunities for residents of Lincoln.

“Recycle Lincoln! is a proposal by Mayor Chris Beutler.  The proposal is intended to increase recycling opportunities for citizens, expand the local economy, reduce the need for expensive landfill expansion, and grow a sustainable future for ourselves and our children.”

I have learnt that there are other people who have identified this problem, and over 1700 people have signed this petition so far. They have a plan set out for what they want to do year by year. They also aim to launch a community based education program to help communicate how, and where to recycle. The Lincoln City Council has taken note of this petition and has held meetings on the educational program the petition aims to create.

This petition is aimed more at the general population of Lincoln, not specifically students, which is where I believe a lot of the problem comes from, hopefully my research can indicate whether I am right with this or not.

Upon reflection from last weeks discussions in my group from the workshop last week, and reading the feedback from them, out of the three ideas I proposed I think there is one clear area which is stronger than the other two.

My idea is to focus on how we can increase the amount of recycling that students of the University of Lincoln do, as I know, from personal experiences and what I’ve seen students are typically very messy and waste a lot of materials that should be recycled. For example, at my student accommodation last year, there was no recycling facilities at all, so with nearly 500 students essentially creating just waste every day, the skips outside the accommodation were full almost daily, throughout most of the year. Needless to say, this amount would add up very quickly.

This problem isn’t without issues, I’m focusing it on one, local, group of people, but being able to reach every single student at the University of Lincoln isn’t something that would be easy, plus if students are left with a lack of recycling facilities, that’s something which is out of my control, as well as the recycling centre being quite far away from Lincoln city centre, a lot of students wouldn’t want to walk all the way up there with several bags full of waste to recycle for example. I plan on looking further into this as to how I could approach this problem in the workshop this week, and get some form of plan set.

To start off the brief, and to try and get some form of direction towards what area I wanted to focus on, I chose 9 potential topics as suggested prior to showing up to the workshop in week 1.  The topics I chose were mainly revolved around news that has been around recently, to try and make the topics very relevant in today’s society. The topics I chose were:

Healthy Life:

How can we encourage people to eat healthier?

How can we encourage people to exercise more?

How can we prevent young people drinking energy drinks?

Go Green:

How can we stop people producing as much waste?

How can we increase the amount we recycle?

How can we use more energy from renewable resources?

Blue Planet:

How can we increase the access to clean water in third world countries?

How can we encourage people to drink more water?

How can we stop people wasting as much water?

A lot of the topics you could argue tie into each other, and some are simply too difficult to do, which I knew when I looked back at them again. So when it came to the workshop, I chose 3 topics, 1 from each category which I felt were the strongest ideas I could put forward to my group. The three ideas I put forward were:

How can we stop younger people from drinking as many energy drinks?

https://www.nhs.uk/news/pregnancy-and- child/over-half- 12-24- year-olds- have-side- effects-energy-
drinks-survey- reports/

How can we stop wasting so much water?

http://www.waterwise.org.uk/pages/faqs.html

How can we increase the amount we recycle?

https://www.recyclingbins.co.uk/recycling-facts/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/21/only-a- third-of- uk-consumer- plastic-
packaging-is- recycled

Upon speaking to my group we talked about specific age groups or demographics to aim them at specifically, as aiming it at the whole population would possibly be too difficult. My group likes my ideas, and I provided further evidence I had found online which proves that these are an issue in today’s world.

All three of these initial ideas weren’t without some form of problem when it came to figuring out a way to do something about it. We can’t stop young people from drinking energy drinks, we can only try and discourage them, we can’t stop people from wasting water. We can however, inform them of what damage each of them is doing to them, and to the planet respectively. I will look at the three ideas again later this week and see which of them I want to try and head more towards for the this brief.

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