After the successful launch of Global Recycling Day in 2018, the Global Recycling Foundation has announced the theme of 2019 as ‘Recycling into the Future’. Global Recycling Day will focus on the power of youth, education and innovation in ensuring a brighter future for the planet. It will take place on 18th March 2019, when people around the world will be invited to show their support for recycling.
Global Recycling Day was created to celebrate the importance that recycling plays in preserving primary resources (water, air, coal, oil, natural gas and minerals). Aiming to bring people together and champion ways to put our planet first, Global Recycling Day highlights the need to consider recyclable materials as resource rather than waste, celebrating the power of the “Seventh Resource” – the goods we recycle every day.
By focusing 2019 on youth and innovation, the Global Recycling Foundation will encourage the world to look towards the impact that today’s young people and future technologies can have on recycling. The Foundation is seeking partners to help spread this message across the world, and is inviting businesses to become ‘Friends of the Foundation’, as well as offering a number of key sponsorship opportunities.
Global Recycling Day 2019 will work to get more young people engaged with the power of the Seventh Resource through a variety of key partnerships (to be announced). The initiative will also work with businesses and entrepreneurs globally to share their innovation, concepts and ideas for better recycling practices in the future.
As in 2018, www.globalrecyclingday.com will continue to act as the key portal for all activities relating to the day; a home to showcase sponsors, highlight case histories and stories, bring campaigns to life and share materials. Global Recycling Day’s current social channels Facebook (@globalrecyclingday) and Twitter (@gblrecyclingday) will be joined by Instagram (@globalrecyclingday), and three key hashtags will be in use: #globalrecyclingday #GRDfuture and #GRDinnovation.
As well as targeting consumers, Global Recycling Day will also use the theme to continue lobbying the UN to have the day officially recognized, and to support the UN in its work of promoting recycling as essential to the future of the planet. It will dovetail UNIDO’s Inclusive Sustainability focus and continue to promote key Sustainable Development Goals. The team has already made significant in-roads into key UN agencies, and in September took part in an important side-event at the UN Basel Convention’s open-ended Working Group (OEWG) meeting in Geneva.
Discussing the importance of a future-focused mindset, Ranjit Baxi, Founding President of the Global Recycling Foundation, said: “It is all too easy to take the world’s natural resources for granted, but they will eventually run out. It is imperative that people worldwide think resource not waste, but we need solutions to make this easier. To truly harness the power of recycling we must come together to find the most innovative solutions and ensure we use these to engage young people across the globe. The youth of today are our future, and we must ensure they develop a ‘resource, not waste’ mindset in to order to look forward to a sustainable future. Global Recycling Day 2019 will help achieve this through driving awareness, sparking debate and helping develop new solutions that ensure the world thinks resource not waste when it comes to recycling.”