Who is a Student Recycling Champion?

25th July 2012

Competition finalists chosen for a chance to work at Reading Festival

A nationwide search for a team of Student Recycling Champions to help spread the green message at Reading Festival, has announced its ten lucky finalists. The ten finalists are Rebecca Smith, Southampton University; Zac Hill, University of Brighton; Sydney Fleming-Gale, University of the Arts London; Aliis Kuusik, University of Edinburgh; John Kilpatrick, University of Exeter; Raggy Munjal, University of Sheffield; Edele Gormley, Bournemouth University; Matthew Gardiner, Bucks New University; Miles Zilesnick, University of Manchester and Elizabeth Workman, London College of Communication.

The competition, run by Every Can Counts, promised its winners the chance to see behind the scenes at Reading Festival and make a valuable contribution to the event’s environmental efforts. Entrants had to suggest a bright idea to encourage more festival-goers to do the right thing with their empty drink cans. This could be a new way of rewarding recyclers for positive behaviour, a bigger and better way to promote the recycling message, or simply a way of making recycling more appealing.

Among the shortlisted ten finalists, big ideas included "Roll up recycle tents" where festival goers have a chance to play fairground games in exchange for empty cans. Another idea entitled, "You CAN make this festival last longer!"suggested that artists would perform for longer, dependant on how many cans were recycled during the festival.

Diana Caldwell of Every Can Counts comments: "We were really impressed with the quality of entries we received, some of the ideas could work very well as part of the promotion Every Can Counts runs at music festivals and events. Every entrant was able to demonstrate enthusiasm for, and commitment to, leading an environmentally-friendly lifestyle; recycling regularly at home and leading on recycling initiatives on campus. The entries we saw were filled with strong ideas put forward by students who want to lead by example and encourage their peers to recycle their drinks cans."

"Every can is 100% recyclable, and if recycled, could be back on shelves as another can in just six weeks. It will be a tough decision to whittle our finalists down to three."

The three lucky winners will be chosen in the next couple of weeks. They will then form the team of Student Recycling Champions and will work alongside the Every Can Counts team, and festival organiser Festival Republic over the festival weekend. The winners will see all aspects of the festival’s recycling operation, work closely with Every Can Counts and the waste management team and help run the promotions encouraging festival goers to recycle more. The winners will also take part in a training workshop and have the opportunity to write about their experiences in an editorial shared with sustainability industry leaders.

For more information about the competition click here.