The Celebration Awards are always a great chance to say hello to the new and innovative within our industry, and this year we were able to welcome so much that was new and exciting. Thank you to all those who entered, it is a tribute to the waste industry that we have so many dedicated people within it willing to go that extra mile. We had a very strong field of candidates for our Celebration Awards this year, The judges had a tough time choosing winners out of very innovative and hardworking teams. However, they had to choose and on the night the following happy winners' names were pulled from the gold envelopes and presented with handsome (and weighty) recycled glass trophies:
Best Communications Campaign of the Year
The winner was Surrey County Council with their Furniture re-use campaign - "Three years ago 51% of surrey residents said that nothing would encourage them to buy reuseable furniture. In 2013 95% said the furniture reuse campaign encouraged them to buy ..." A spectacular turnaround due to an wide-ranging communications campaign aimed at changing behaviour. The certainly are succeeding.
The runners up were the London Borough of Lewisham with their Mission Impossible - diverting 2,629 tonnes from landfill to recycling in 12 months, and the West London Waste Authroity with their Recycle for London campaign delivered in partnership with GLA and WRAP and funded by the LWARB.
Best Partnership Award
A huge cheer went up with Croydon Council won this award for Transforming Surrey Street Market - in a partnership project between themselves and Veolia Environmental Services. The market which previously hadn't changed how it dealt with waste pretty much from the 1200s (!) is now well on its way to becoming a zero waste market.
The runners up were Cardiff Council with thei Get it out for Cardiff initiative which has built a strong relationship between iself and three local universities, Cardiff DIGs and Cardiff based charities, who joined together to tackel waste minimisation on many levels among students. The second runner up was the London Borough of Islington with Bright Sparkes where the council partnered with social enterprise DigiBridge CIC which has expanded its operations from WEEE reuse and repair to incude furniture, electrial and household item.s
Best Team of the Year
Aylesbury ValeDistrict Council, a small handful of people in the face of tight budgets,deadlines and extremely complex waste streams in one year achieved a 52% recycling reate, saved £5000Km signed up 13,000 customers to a garden waste collection scheme and saw a 39% reduction to landfill. Add to that: multi million poutn procurement programmes, depot rebuild, intensive comms campaign - all delivered in-house and you begin to see why they won this recognition!
The runners up were Chiltern and Wycombe joint Waste Team - saving their taxpayers around £1 million by amalgamating their services and Croydon Council who, following a significant service change by using a flexible, multi-lingual team to engage non recycling participants, succeeded in delivering significant behaviour change.
Best Waste Minimisation or Prevention Project
Merseyside and Walton Waste Partnership - a partnership of seven local authorities delivers a Waste Prevention Programme in the Liverpool city region - made a 38.45% contribution in reducing household wast arising int eh city. The runners up were Herfordhsire Councty Council who with FCC Environmental and sue Ryder launched a six-month pilot scheme and the HWRC diverting re-useable items and using the funds to provide essential care for residents at the local Sue Ryder Neurological Care Centre, and North London Waste Authroitiey's Waste Prevention programme who managed to divert 11,000 tones from landfill.
Best New Idea
Cheshire West and Cheshire Council won this for their introduction of the first weekly kerbside nappy and incontinence product recycling scheme in England. customer satisfaction rates of 99.2% were achieved. Runners up wierhe Cherwell District Council and their 'Electrical Items Lost their Spark' - kerbside collection of small electrical items and South Norfolk District Council with their WEEE reuse and recycling events which raise awareness of alternatives disposal options.
Recycling Officer of the Year
Joanna Dixon from Croydon Council - Community Recycling Officer since 2010 when she was a LARAC Scholar! Awarded for her sheer ingenuity diligence and innovation coupled with sensitivity - well done Joanna, who now joins the LARAC exec for the next year, welcome aboard. Runners up and also well-deserving of recognition were Emma Cocksedge from Essex County council, a champion of waste prevention and James 'Sel' Messer from the Scottish Borders Council, so obviously valued and admired by his colleagues as a beacon of best service. Well done to all.
Thank you to all who took part - you are all winners really, of that we are agreed!
It was a great night, a real celebration of all that is inventive in our industry. We took the opportunity to say goodbye to Colin Kirkby, MBE, LARAC Executive Officer, who will be retiring before the next conference, and while we are sorry that colleagues depart, looking round that room it was exciting to see so much enthusiasm and energy eager to take on the future.
