Increasing Household Food Recycling: Devon

Objectives

Devon County Council wanted to provide residents with clear information about their food waste recycling service in order to increase resident participation in food recycling activities and reduce waste to landfill.

The video was intended to provide accessible information about food waste recycling to all Devon residents including use as an educational tool in schools. The broad age range meant we had to carefully consider the language used, to make sure the processes were explained in an accessible way.

The council was also keen that the video should show food recycling in the context of a circular economy and be filmed on location at key food recycling plants in the county.

Approach

Our team worked with Devon County Council to sketch out and script the story board, taking viewers through the whole food recycling process. The story was structured to fit into three parts:

• how food waste is created;
• how it is processed; and
• the circular economy context.

The story starts in a family kitchen with two children and their father discussing which bin their food waste goes into. The story then follows the family as they put their food recycling out and then follow the process through from a transfer station to an AD plant. It ends with the family visiting a dairy farm where ice cream is made using milk from the cows and power from an AD plant.

We liaised with representatives from all locations to agree the script concept and filming requirements. Our team conducted all the onsite filming and sound recording and edited the footage into a short video using industry-leading video editing software Adobe Premier Pro. Subtitles were included to ensure maximum accessibility. The film was edited to enable it to be broken into three separate shorter stand-alone videos if required.

We spent time on building good relationships with the children to help get the best results.

Outcomes

The final four-minute video explained the food recycling process in simple terms to suit a diverse audience.

The video is accessible through the Recycle Devon Youtube channel, and is linked from their main website and the schools ‘zone’ website.

With thanks to Rosie Scrambler at Devon County Council who supported this project.