Topic of the year: Metals
It’s not just plastic that gets the recycling treatment. Metal, too, can be recycled, from tins and cans right down to the smallest paperclip. Unfortunately, this fact is not well known and metal waste often ends up in the mixed waste container.
To address this imbalance, this year’s communication focus is on metal waste. We’ve teamed up with the famous Czech influencer Karel “Kovy” Kovář, whose nickname literally means “metals.” The starting point, for our tale begins with a link “Story of Metals” on a dedicated landing page within the online magazine at Samosebou.cz. Here we will find all information relating to the sorting, recycling and other possible uses for metal waste.
Karel “Kovy” Kovář follows with his own story, in his own inimitable, witty manner. He also contributed to an educational video on the topic of an “Eco-friendly life,” and spoke to us about how he focusses on the recycling process, as well as his perception of eco-friendliness.
If you were wondering how the Czech Republic is doing when it comes to the metal recycling, here are a few statistics that should impress. We’ve organised all of the interesting facts and figures into an infographic. And for neophytes, we’ve recorded a short video-tutorial on how to correctly sort metal waste.
There are also many other communication assets that expound on the story of metal recycling, including videos, stories, Facebook Canvas and social media posts. For instance a popular post on Instagram about recycling metal yoghurt covers has received over 2,500 likes on Instagram and created a rich discussion.
EKO-KOM is pleased with the buzz and so are we. Three quarters of all Czechs sort their rubbish on a regular basis. And during the pandemic these stats went even higher. One positive influence on these numbers has been the addition of 12,000 new recycling containers, specifically those for metal waste during 2020.
“The recycling of metals meets with a fast rise of the containers for its collection. Altogether, it is possible to recycle metals in more than 73 thousand containers,” says Radim Dvořáček, communications manager for EKO-KOM. “One of the most influential factors is also the multi-commodity waste collection, where it is possible to recycle metals into yellow containers along with plastics – such a container is always labelled with a grey sticker carrying the information if it is possible to use it for a metal waste.”
On a final note, 99% of all sorted metal waste is actually recycled, so it does make sense to sort it.