People encouraged to #ChooseToReuse and #TryRefill across the Highlands

The Highland Community Waste Partnership, coordinated by environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful has launched a new campaign encouraging people across the Highlands to make a conscious choice to consume less when it comes to packaging and single use items.

With 11 billion items of on-the-go packaging being produced in the UK every year action is needed now if we are to tackle the climate, nature and litter emergencies we are facing.

The Conscious Consumption Campaign aims to raise awareness of the environmental impacts of the things that we make, buy, use and throw away and what can be done to change this.

The first phase of the campaign, running from now until March 2025 focuses on packaging waste and will encourage consumers to do what they can to reduce single-use items and packaging waste in two key settings:

• #ChooseToReuse on-the-go by using reusable water bottles, cups and even lunchboxes instead of single-use alternatives; and
• #TryRefill when grocery shopping, by promoting businesses that offer packaging-free options across the Highlands.

The next phase will work with businesses to reduce the amount of single-use packaging that they offer and encourage the use of reusable alternatives to their customers.

Velocity Café and Bicycle Workshop in Inverness are one of the Highland Community Waste Partnership partners, and sell their own reusable cups and containers, as well as charging for single-use cups in their café. CEO of Keep Scotland Beautiful, Barry Fisher visited the café ahead of the campaign launch to see how the scheme worked.

Barry said, “The Conscious Consumption Campaign, launched during Scotland’s Climate Week, aims to support the 77% of people in the Highlands who said they would be willing to change their consumption habits in order to reduce their environmental impact.  By supporting consumers to understand their options, we hope that we can shift more people towards reusable and refillable packaging options.”

Georgina Massouraki, Highland Community Waste Partnership Coordinator at Keep Scotland Beautiful, said: “80% of Scotland’s carbon footprint comes from the things that we make, buy, use and throw away, often after just one use.

“By switching to reusable alternatives where possible we can continue to enjoy the things we love, whilst reducing the harm to our environment and the communities that depend on it.

“The Conscious Consumption Campaign aims to inspire changes in behaviour and make it easy for people to make more sustainable choices and move us towards a more circular economy where we both use and waste less.”

The partnership, funded by The National Lottery Community Fund, and coordinated by Keep Scotland Beautiful is a collaboration between eight partner organisations* working over three years to reduce waste and build a Highland-wide movement for more sustainable consumption, in line with a Net Zero future. An impact report highlighting successes of the partnership first year was published earlier this month.