Campaign report
Contents 1. Executive summary 2. Results and recommendations 3. Campaign background 4. Campaign strategy 5. Measurement
In a nutshell Can We Talk Dirty? took a new angle to tackle
food waste contamination. Targeting young people in Brixton, we tested whether playful, unexpected communications cut through better than the usual recycling rulebook.
Over 9 in 10* people from our target age group liked the campaign style *69 out of 70 post-campaign survey responses from people age 18-34
Can We Talk Dirty has shown that…
when it comes to recycling, a bit of personality goes a long way. By swapping lectures for humour and creating something that felt fresh and unexpected, we encouraged younger audiences to stop, pay attention and engage with a topic they might normally scroll past. We saw encouraging shifts in recycling behaviours, and overwhelmingly positive reactions to the campaign style. The big opportunity now is scale. Local authorities across the country face similar challenges, and this campaign suggests there’s huge value in taking a more creative, audience-first approach. If we want people to recycle right, we need communications that people actually want to engage with." Gavin Ellis, Co-CEO at Hubbub
Working with Hubbub gave us... the confidence to test a different approach to tackling contamination. As a council, it's important to invest in communications that don't just inform residents, but genuinely influence behaviour. This pilot gave us encouraging evidence that a more creative approach can improve recycling confidence and behaviours, while providing valuable insights that will help shape future campaigns. We highly recommend this kind of collaboration to other local authorities looking to tackle recycling challenges in new, engaging ways." Jake Morgan-Stead, Head of Digital Campaigns andCommunications at Hubbub
Key aim: •
Prove the efficacy of a new, creative approach to recycling comms, to inform future local authority campaigns that drive engagement and impact.
Results: • The bold, playful campaign style was effective. 88%* of people liked it, rising to 99%** in our target age range. People reported being more likely to stop and engage because it didn't look like a typical recycling ad. •
Human, relatable, and short snappy content worked best. The 10s video performed 2.5 times better than the 30s version, and the influencer content received the most impressions.
Learnings:
•
Taking a bold, creative approach is effective – especially when this is tailored for a specific audience and issue.
*128/146 respondents **69/70 respondents age 18-34
“A lot of people wouldn’t care about wanting to read a recycling thing, so if they don't know it's about recycling and they're like ‘Oh, can we talk dirty? What's that?”
Secondary aim: •
Reduce food contamination in three target recycling rounds.
Results: • 20% more* people reported that they empty out any food and give packaging a quick rinse. • Contamination reduced in 2 out of 3 target rounds by 0.6-4%, but some anomalies in the data limit reliability. Learnings: • If measuring this via a sampling process, take weekly samples (rather than monthly) to counteract the fluctuation in data points. • Waste composition analysis at a household level would likely provide more accurate results.
*46% in pre-campaign survey (of 198 respondents), 55% in post-campaign survey (of 146 respondents)
“It makes recycling seem less scary just empty it, rinse it, and then put in your bin and that's fine.”
Key recommendations
“I was walking with my husband, having a conversation, and we both stopped and looked at the billboard it definitely caught our attention.”
Be targeted
Hook your audience in
When tackling a specific issue, one size often doesn’t fit all. Narrow down your audience and adapt the campaign creative, messages and channels to suit.
Use human-centred content they’ll be interested in. Our more relatable content featuring real people out-performed graphic-led content.
Stand out
Keep it snappy
Use bright colours, bold design and memorable messages to grab attention. At first glance, people didn’t realise it was a recycling campaign, which kept them engaged.
People don’t need all the information at once. Prioritise shortform content, focus on one key message, and signpost where to find more information, such as via a QR code.
What’s next We're looking for local authorities, waste authorities and waste management companies who are interested in: •
Replicating the campaign, with the flexibility to adapt it to better suit their audience, location and preferred comms channels
•
Creating a bespoke campaign tailored to their needs, with a similar playful approach but targeting different audiences or waste issues
•
Joining a collaborative, large-scale campaign with 5-10 local authorities to develop a broader, scalable approach to recycling comms that can work across the UK
If you're keen to a more creative approach to recycling communications, we'd love to hear from you:
hello@hubbub.org.uk
Campaign background
The brief With Simpler Recycling being introduced and EPR unlocking new funding for local authority campaigns, we set out to test a creative, new approach with Lambeth Council and Ecosurety.
Do playful, unexpected communications cut through better than the usual recycling rulebook?
The issue By analysing existing data, we narrowed down the campaign focus: •
WRAP's data shows that 18-34 year olds and renters are less confident and engaged in recycling.
•
Almost a third of contamination in Lambeth’s recycling is food waste, which increases costs for the council and impacts recycling rates.
•
Three kerbside recycling rounds in Brixton were identified with average recycling rates but high contamination. Brixton also has a high proportion of 18-34 year old renters.
Campaign aims •
Overarching goal: Prove the efficacy of a new, creative approach to recycling comms, to inform future local authority campaigns that drive engagement and impact.
•
Secondary goal: Reduce food contamination in three target recycling rounds.
•
Target audience: 18-34-year-olds in Brixton.
•
Behavioural context: Confusion, convenience culture, lack of feedback and understanding the impact drives incorrect recycling behaviours
•
How to tackle it: Raising awareness of what counts as food contamination, its impact, and making people feel that recycling right is worth it.
Pre-campaign survey •
59%* of residents were unsure how clean food packaging needs to be so it can be recycled
•
60%* were unsure what can be recycled
•
27%* said they didn't understand the impact of putting the wrong things in the recycling bin
*of 198 people, pre-campaign survey
Campaign strategy
Leading insights People don’t know that they’re contaminating with food.
Comedy and surprise works better than authority-led lecturing.
Our target audience are already recycling. They have good intentions, but they don’t know that contamination is a problem. They might think that a few food scraps won't hurt, so what’s the point in cleaning out their packaging?
Standard recycling comms don’t engage our audience, and they're unlikely to think or know about the impact of their recycling behaviours.
We need to meet people where they’re at using language that resonates.
They respond to entertainment, irony, and self-awareness not instructions.
Creative
• Playful, unexpected and attention-grabbing. • An on-topic creative route that deliberately avoids the look and feel of traditional recycling communications to maximise cut-through. • Simple, positive messages that explain why the behaviour matters and make the action feel easy and worthwhile.
Digital • 30s and 10s versions of the hero film shown as ads on Facebook, Instagram and Youtube, targeting Brixton in the evening when people were eating and disposing of packaging. • 30s film used as a trailer at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton for 2 weeks. • Street interview video hosted by Wilf (Traitors S1) shared organically and as an ad on socials. • Static ads on socials using images of the billboards and campaign assets.
Watch the hero film here
Watch the voxpop here
Print • 4,500 leaflets delivered to Brixton properties on the three target recycling rounds • Two billboards in central Brixton
Measurement
Digital ad campaign • With a marketing spend of £9,000, the campaign generated almost 1.2 million impressions – enough to reach everyone in Brixton 14 times. • Out of all video content on Meta, Wilf’s vox-pop had the highest number of impressions and reach, but the hero videos had the most thruplays due to them being shorter (10-30s) than Wilf’s video (60s). • The 10s hero videos proved more effective than the 30s version – the top performing 10s clip had 2.5 times more impressions than the 30s video. “That type of content, street interviews, is very common, very snappy, very engaged with by our generation, so I think it's very effective at getting the message across.”
Impressions
% of total impressions
Hero video ads
165,512
14%
65,548
21%
Static ads
221,959
19%
108,954
35%
Influencer voxpop ad
116,796
10%
56,542
18%
Campaign survey
76,374
6%
76,374
25%
Cinema ad
4,349
0.5%
-
-
Leaflets
4,500
0.5%
-
-
Billboards
600,000*
50%
-
-
Total
1,188,849
-
307,418
-
*Modelled estimate based on location, format and typical OOH visibility assumptions
Views
% of total views
What did people think? Methodology To understand attitudes to recycling in Lambeth and reactions to the campaign, we used online surveys and focus groups. Surveys • Pre- and post-campaign online surveys, (198 pre-campaign responses and 146 post-campaign) promoted via targeted ads in Brixton • Our largest respondent age groups were: 25-34 (35%), 45-54 (21%), 35-44 (19%) Focus groups • Two 1-hour focus groups with 12 people with a mix of age ranges, including 8 people from our target audience (18-34) • Images and videos of typical Lambeth Council and Recycle Now communications, alongside Hubbub’s campaign, were shown
What did people think? The post-campaign survey showed improvements in recycling behaviours and attitudes, but recall was limited: • • • •
25% more people felt sure about what can be recycled (48% > 60%) 20% more people reported that they empty out any food and give the packaging a quick rinse (46% > 55%) 14% more people felt that recycling is worthwhile (69% > 79%) 8% of respondents remembered seeing the campaign
88% of people liked the campaign style, including: • The message being clear and easy to understand 53% • The bright colours and eye-catching visuals 52 % • The playful, humorous approach – 42%
What did people think? Key themes from the focus groups include: • The campaign's bold visual style, playful approach and snappy street-interview content were favoured compared to traditional recycling communications. • People were more likely to stop and engage because it didn't look like a typical recycling campaign. • Younger audiences responded particularly well; traditional council materials were seen as informative but text-heavy and easier to ignore. • People preferred having less information with one clear message, providing a QR code for those who want to find out more – particularly on confusing items like pizza boxes and toothpaste tubes.
What did people think? How people described typical recycling comms • Clear, informative, obvious, boring • Comprehensive but not engaging • Too much information, overwhelming for short attention spans
Vs. this campaign • Fun, engaging, eye-catching, relatable • Pink more attention-grabbing than traditional green • Visually appealing, particularly to younger audiences
“Looking at the ‘yes please no thanks’ graphic, I like information being presented in that way. If future campaigns could present that information in Hubbub's visual identity I think that could be a really good way to mix the best aspects from the two campaigns”
In their own words Quotes from the survey and focus groups include:
Contamination sampling Methodology: Western Riverside Waste Authority conducted a sampling process on the three target recycling rounds. Each month during the campaign, a portion of the material from each vehicle (approx. 75kg) was taken and separated into each material type. The material types were then weighed to calculate the amount of recycling and contamination within the sample. We've compared the average % of contamination, and the average % of food in that contamination, from historic data (3-4 samples per round, Jan 2025 – Jan 2026) and post-campaign data (3 samples per round, Feb – Apr 2026). Results: Contamination reduced in 2 out of 3 rounds, but some anomalies in the data limit reliability due to the number and size of the samples taken. For example, contamination increased in Round 2 due to one post-campaign sample containing 65% food waste in the contamination, compared to 18% and 19% in the other two samples. Round
Historic % contam
Post-campaign % contam
Change
Historic % food in contam
Post-campaign % food in contam
Change
1
21.9%
21.3%
-0.6%
25%
23%
-2%
2
21.2%
22.0%
+0.8%
33%
34%
+1%
3
19.0%
14.9%
-4.1%
46%
25%
-21%
Want to find out more? Let’s chat. rosie.sharp@hubbub.org.uk