Love Your Forest I 2018 Impact report I Hubbub

LOVE YOUR FOREST I M PA C T R E P O R T 2 0 1 8

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Litter is an on-going and stubborn problem.

Polling by Hubbub UK (2016) revealed that 86%1 of the public believe that dropping litter is an anti-social behaviour, yet litter levels have not dropped in the last 12 years. Last year, clearing up litter cost local authorities across England £682 million2.

Love Your Forest is a collaborative project created in 2016 by Hubbub UK and funded by Lucozade Ribena Suntory. It has been running for three consecutive years in collaboration with the Forest of Dean District Council, Forestry Commission, Foresters’ Forest and Wye Valley and Forest of Dean Tourism.

Each year 250 tonnes of litter are removed from the Forest of Dean. The cost to local taxpayers for keeping the area clean is over £430,000. Love Your Forest was designed to reduce littering in the Forest of Dean by actively engaging with the local community to test a wide range of new approaches to raise awareness on the issue of rural littering.

Following initial research and local consultations, a series of innovative interventions were developed to target litter hotspots, roadside littering, littering in towns and on trails in the forest. These elements aimed to target the whole community, including school children, families, cyclists, motorists, and anyone who uses forestry sites.

They have included creating the UK’s first litter shop, a touring ‘Trashconverter’ inviting people to swap their trash for treats, showcasing art installations in the forest, trialling reusable picnic products, delivering educational programmes in schools and targeting specific audiences such as motorists, mountain bikers and scouting groups.

The campaign generated a high level of local engagement.

30 organisations contributed to the initial stakeholder discussions, 14 primary schools and 2 secondary schools participated in anti-littering educational activities, at least 38 local businesses have supported the campaign and over 11,470 local people have been actively engaged with elements of the campaign. Through our various interventions we have directly collected over 522 bags of litter.

Over the three years the campaign has secured 18 broadcast features, 32 mentions in press media and 19 in trade press. We tracked the campaign reach through press, broadcast and social media, this secured a total reach of 15 million people. Coverage included BBC Inside Out, BBC World News, BBC Radio 5 Live, Heart FM, the BBC main news site, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Mirror and Huffington Post.

Love Your Forest was successful due to various elements.

The following recommendations are relevant to anyone wishing to do an anti-littering campaign elsewhere: •

Do initial insights and find out what people want.

•

Collaborate with as many people as possible.

•

Use rewards to engage with people and start a conversation .

•

Use prove behaviour change techniques and build interventions based on these.

•

Make engagement relevant to the audience.

Love Your Forest worked closely with community groups to collaborate and build the campaign with individual audiences in mind. It’s a bespoke campaign that was built to tackle litter specific to the Forest of Dean.

Communicating the issue of littering in this way meant we achieved significant community engagement, generated a desire for further campaigns to be developed and successfully raised awareness of the impact of littering in the forest. The most successful elements will go on to be funded by Lucozade Ribena Suntory for another year with support from Hubbub, Forest of Dean District Council, Forestry Commission, Foresters’ Forest and Wye Valley and Forest of Dean Tourism.

We used questionnaires to collect qualitative feedback measuring the effectiveness of communicating the issue of littering in each of the campaign elements. The Forest of Dean District Council conducted regular litter-picks along roads in the Forest of Dean which showed litter levels dropped from 6 bags per km to 2.7 bags per km – however this does not measure litter within the forest.

Where possible we conducted litter-picks around our interventions to evaluate their individual effectiveness.

These litter picks suggested slight improvements in some locations and no improvements in others.

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https://www.hubbub.org.uk/neat-streets https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/litter-and-littering-in-england-2016-to-2017/litter-and-littering-in-england-2016-to-2017

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CONTENTS EXECUTIVE

S U M M A R Y ....................................................................................

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C O N T E X T ...................................................................................................................

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T H E A P P R O A C H .....................................................................................................

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A I M S O F T H E C A M P A I G N ...............................................................................

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C A M P A I G N A C T I V I T I E S : ................................................................................... 13 Trashconverter..........................................................................................................

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CON-venience Store: Litter shop.............................................................................

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School Engagement.................................................................................................

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Communitrees: Testing the effects of watchful eyes...............................................

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Engaging motorists..................................................................................................

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Engaging specific audiences ..................................................................................

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F U R T H E R I M P A C T : ..............................................................................................

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Wider litter picking data...........................................................................................

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Media reach..............................................................................................................

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Social media reach...................................................................................................

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Qualitative feedback.................................................................................................

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R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S .........................................................................................

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FUTURE

P L A N S .................................................................................................... 27

A B O U T T H O S E I N V O L V E D ................................................................................ 29

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CONTEXT The Forest of Dean is situated between the Rivers Wye and Severn and is one of the UK’s few surviving ancient woodlands. Each year 250 tonnes of litter are removed from the Forest of Dean. The cost to local taxpayers for keeping the area clean is over £430,000.

The Love Your Forest campaign was created and delivered by the charity Hubbub UK with funding and support from local employer Lucozade Ribena Suntory (LRS). Hubbub UK takes a fresh approach to environmental communication, seeking to engage the mainstream audience through playful intervention.

The charity has partnered with local organisations to develop the campaign further: The Forest of Dean District Council, the Forestry Commission, Foresters’ Forest and Wye Valley and Forest of Dean Tourism.

THE APPROACH The main approach of Love Your Forest was to build on the pride local people feel towards their forest. As such, most of the campaign messaging was positive and encouraged people to do the right thing by taking their litter home. Our interventions were fun and inclusive to people of all ages.

Throughout the three years, the Love Your Forest campaign has emphasised collaboration. Regular stakeholder meetings ensured that local community groups have helped direct and steer the campaign. The campaign has evolved by listening to feedback in the community and addressing concerns and wishes of the local people.

AIMS OF C A M PA I G N •

Test new and playful interventions to communicate the issue of littering.

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Reduce the amount of litter in and around the Forest of Dean including paths, popular picnic areas within the forest and on the roadsides.

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Raise awareness about the issue of littering.

•

Engage with the local community and encourage discussions about the impact of littering.

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Create a cohesive anti-littering campaign uniting various community ambassadors and groups to work together to tackle the litter problem.

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TIMELINE OF EVENTS

April 2016

Research and initial discussions with 36 local groups.

June 2016

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Love Your Forest school education programmes begin.

•

Roadside gallery placed around forest roads.

May 2016

CON-venience store – launch of the UK’s first litter shop.

October 2016

Evaluation meeting for the community to feedback on year 1.

July 2016

50 Communitree faces are placed in areas around the forest.

May 2017

Litter-free picnic kits tested by 20 families.

April 2017

Trashconverter ‘van’ trialled in the forest inviting people to swap trash for treats.

June 2017

Car sticker competition launches to target motorists.

July 2017

Communitree faces relaunch at popular picnic spot.

April 2018

New Trashconverter trailer launches at community event.

October 2017

Year 2 evaluation meeting to gather feedback.

June 2018

Litter Critter workshops to create litter-bugs out of recycled materials.

May 2018

Badge for scouts and guides released to encourage litter picks in the area.

November 2018 3 year report is released

September 2018 December 2018 Litter biker installed at a cycle cafĂŠ.

Planning for 2019.

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C A M PA I G N A C T I V I T I E S

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Trashconverter Can rewards reduce litter?

We wanted to investigate whether reinforcing positive behaviour using rewards could raise awareness on the cost associated with clearing litter and encourage people to act in a responsible way.

We developed the Trashconverter, which invited people to swap their trash for a variety of treats and rewards. The Trashconverter van (2017) and trailer (2018) visited: •

Local primary (KS1 & KS2) and secondary schools (KS3 & KS4) - interacting with children during their lunch break to encourage them to bin their litter and do small litter picks around their playground in order to get a reward. Forest of Dean District Council Street Wardens particularly noted the ability to engage with high school students, (12-16) who are difficult to talk to about litter.

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Community events throughout the Forest of Dean - ensuring the campaign reached a wide mix of audiences.

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Local businesses - engaging with employees and tie into internal education initiatives around environmental sustainability.

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Tourist attractions and litter hotspots such as picnic destinations to try and directly tackle the sources of litter.

The treats available varied from hot drinks, popcorn, fresh bouquets of flowers, postcards and pens made from recycled cardboard, and a selection of UK native wildflower seed bombs (provided by Seedball). In order to receive a treat visitors had to use one of the litter or recycling bins provided or do a small litter pick in the area around the Trashconverter.

In 2017 we tested the idea with a two-week trial, using a Citroen HY Van. It visited a total of 27 locations and 2,418 people swapped their litter for a treat. A total of 68 bags of litter were collected.

The overwhelming positive feedback for the Trashconverter encouraged LRS to provide an initial investment allowing us to convert a pre-loved horse-trailer into a new-look Trashconverter. This ensured it was a permanent part of the campaign and available for use by Love Your Forest’s partnering organisations.

In 2018 the Trashconverter visited 37 locations and interacted with over 2,905 people. Collecting 75 ½ bags of recycling and 42 bags of general waste. Questionnaires touring with the Trashconverter revealed3:

92%

88%

agreed the Trashconverter had a clear anti-littering message

agree the Trashconverter made them feel pride in the Forest of Dean

100%

70%

96%

wanted to see more antilittering initiatives like the Trashconverter

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100%

felt a stronger sense of community after visiting the Trashconverter

learnt something new about the impacts of littering

visitors planned to change their behaviour after visiting the Trashconverter

5,323 people visited the Trashconverter

185

bags of recycling and general waste were collected

Love Your Forest questionnaires with 27 people who visited the Trashconverter

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96% of visitors planned on changing their behaviour such as using more reusable items, taking part in litter picks or taking their litter home.

Feedback from staff involved with the Trashconverter suggested this kind of intervention engaged people on the issue of littering who otherwise may not be interested.

This feedback suggests that having a highly interactive and rewarding intervention can be a successful way to communicate an anti-littering message and reinforce positive behaviour change amongst audiences who may typically not be engaged by other approaches.

This approach has gone on to be used in other Hubbub campaigns such as Leeds By Example.

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Raising awareness on the issue of littering

In our initial research we uncovered litter that was over 33 years old, highlighting how litter left behind can stick around for decades. We wanted a campaign element that could emphasise the long-lasting nature of litter and its impacts.

We created the UK’s first litter shop. Our CON-venience store was an art installation built in collaboration with Brighton-based artist’s Dirty Beach, situated on St Johns Street in Coleford.

The shop was open to the public three days a week for two months. It contained litter collected from the forest floor; cleaned, rebranded and displayed to create a thought-provoking museum of waste. The display included everything from ancient crisp packets to nitrous oxide canisters.

70% of people interviewed thought the shop effectively raised awareness on the issue of littering. It was visited by over 500 individuals and 3 primary schools trips. 200 postcards, 2,400 badge stickers and 100 car bumper stickers promoting anti-littering messages were taken home by visitors.

A short video of the Litter Shop was created and posted on social media. The video has 9,753 views (as of 10th November) and can be viewed at https://youtu.be/0pKqVOmHaUw. Further feedback suggested that having the litter shop in a fixed location meant that other towns in the district missed out on being able to see it. Consequently, we ensured future campaign activities were mobile and we increased our use of press and social media to enhance the campaigns inclusivity and reach.

“There was loads of talk about what the shop was going to be…

Kids walking past thought it was going to be a sweet shop. We’ve absolutely loved having it across the road from us. Please do it again!”

Moot Furniture Shop

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How can we best engage schools on littering?

Love Your Forest’s educational programmes aimed to encourage the next generation of foresters to take their litter home and focused on the issue of litter around primary and secondary schools. A variety of activities were offered to different schools based on what would fit within their curriculum; •

Visit from Trashconverter – encouraged children to swap their litter or do a litter pick for a treat.

•

Anti-litter poster competition – Year 5 primary school students were invited to design a poster encouraging people to ‘Keep the Forest of Dean clean and take their litter home’. These posters were displayed on the district council’s street cleaning vehicles and on our social media channels for the campaign.

•

Love Your Forest videos – 3 short videos were shown to primary school children in assemblies alongside a talk about the impacts of littering.

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Wildlife visit – a volunteer took hedgehogs and rabbits to schools and explained the impacts litter may have on them.

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Art workshops – primary school children were challenged to use scrap materials and commonly littered items into either a Communitree or Litter Critter (see picture).

“Highly recommended! A ‘must’ for all children, in order to understand the impact of littering on our world.”

“It’s absolutely fantastic that [Love Your Forest] is championing this very important issue. We very much look forward to seeing you again next year” Local Teacher

Local Teacher

“Simple, yet engaging. The children loved it!”

Local Teacher

Over the three-year campaign we made a total of 32 visits to local primary and secondary schools, offering a mix of interventions to each.

Feedback from staff and teachers suggested that the more interactive elements were the most successful as they made it easier to communicate an anti-littering message in a fun and positive way. This included the crafting workshops, anti-litter poster competition, and Trashconverter.

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Communitrees: Testing the effects of watchful eyes

In our research we found studies suggesting that people are more likely to act in a socially responsible way if they feel they are being watched. For instance, a pair of eyes above an honesty box in a coffee shop increased the amount of money donated4. We wanted to test this approach in our campaign.

The Forest of Dean has lots of popular picnic spots which often attract higher levels of litter, particularly where people felt they were out of sight. We wanted to playfully engage with visitors to these sites and communicate a clear anti-littering message.

We merged the idea of using watchful eyes and litter artwork to communicate the issue. 50 ‘Communitree’ faces were designed and made by local school children. These were then installed on trees at 15 litter hot spots throughout the Forest of Dean. The faces were created from reclaimed materials by local artists. In partnership with the Forestry Commission a map was created that displayed the location of each Communitree and challenged visitors to the forest to find them, whilst reminding them to take their litter home.

In 2016, a total of 250 children entered a Communitree design competition and over 2,000 maps were taken from 25 sites. Measurement included pre and post litter picks, 60ft around each Communitree location. Some sites reported up to a 30% reduction in litter levels, however this change was not present at all sites. As a result, it was suggested that the impact of the Communitrees would be improved by targeting one specific site with a larger number of Communitrees to make the anti-littering message clearer.

In 2017, we tested the impact of Communitrees in a single picnic site to increase their visibility and to see if targeted interventions made a difference. Litter picks around the picnic site took place before and after their implementation

by Foresters’ Forest volunteers who counted the number of items collected on site. A baseline litter count was conducted at the beginning of the summer holidays when the Communitrees were installed (364 items) and a secondary litter count took place at the end of the holidays when the Communitrees had been present for a longer period of time (473 items). This suggests that the Communitrees presence alone were not enough to curb the influx of litter when more people visit forestry sites over the summer.

It was recommended that the Communitrees should be used in combination with other anti-littering measures as they did not appear to discourage littering alone. Further testing with direct comparison sites should be conducted.

In our 2017 exit-survey, 95% of respondents thought the Communitrees communicated a clear anti-littering message, suggesting that they are an effective tool to positively display anti-littering messages. The Communitree making workshops with children were also extremely popular, suggesting the hands-on craft element is a successful intervention by itself.

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https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9424-big-brother-eyes-make-us-act-more-honestly/

THE OWN ND TE D U FI WRI O Y ER EE LETT ACH TR OX! AT E HE B IN T

Can you find all the Communitrees and collect their litter letters?

The guardians of the Forest have a message for you...

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HOW TO ENGAGE MOTORISTS Roadside littering is a problem in many communities across the UK. The forest is no exception with a significant number of rural roads making it tempting for motorists to discard of their litter. Cleaning up from the roadside is expensive and has safety challenges for those litter picking. We wanted to trial positive community building approaches for engaging with motorists in the Forest of Dean.

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Community Gallery

We first attempted to address the challenge by building a sense of pride amongst motorists. We developed the roadside gallery, a series of outdoor posters installed on A and B roads around the forest. The gallery features members of the local community holding up messages of pride for their area with our anti-littering slogan – ‘keep the Forest of Dean clean and take your litter home’. Over 100 members of the local community were photographed for the campaign.

Due to health and safety restrictions it was not possible to do regular litter picks along the roadside to see the direct impact these signs had. Qualitative feedback suggested that the posters were a positive way to display anti-littering signs alongside roads, but they may have been too thinly spread out in various spots around the Forest of Dean.

Following the positive response of the roadside gallery in year one, the Joint Waste Team at the Forest of District Council have been installing the roadside gallery along busy stretches of road after they have been cleaned by the street cleansing team, encouraging visitors to keep the roads clean.

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Car sticker competition

To further engage motorists, the Joint Waste team in the Forest of Dean District Council led on the creation of a “Love Your Forest” car sticker competition. Custom made window stickers were produced for motorists to proudly display the campaigns key message ‘#LoveYourForest – keep the Forest of Dean clean and take your litter home’ in the rear window of their car. These could be collected from over 37 supporting businesses.

Cars who were spotted with the sticker in their window were entered into a weekly prize draw. The winner was announced alongside a weekly litter article in the local newspaper. These articles explored various topics around litter including: the impact on wildlife, how to get involved in the Love Your Forest campaign, celebrating local litter-pickers and busting common myths around littering.

10,000 stickers were distributed in 2017 and 12,500 stickers were distributed in 2018. 814 unique car registrations were spotted and entered into the prize draw. 36 individual prizes were donated by businesses for the competition over the 2 years, offering a way for local businesses to get involved, support and share the campaign.

The local newspaper is read by an estimated 46,034 people and a total of 27 articles were featured between 2017 and 2018. By combining these articles with the competition we ensured that people came back to read the articles and learn more about the issue of littering each week.

The car sticker competition worked extremely well at enabling members of the public to take a small action to join in with the campaign and share an anti-littering message.

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ENGAGING SPECIFIC AUDIENCES

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Picnickers Litter-free Picnic Challenge

Taking a picnic to one of the forest’s popular picnic sites is a must for families and tourists in warmer weather. Picnics often bring an abundance of food and drinks packaging which can be easily left behind or blown away. We aimed to engage with people who use the forest’s many many picnic sites.

In 2017, we launched the litter-free picnic challenge, recruiting 20 families in the Forest of Dean to trial a ‘litter-free picnic kit’. These kits contained a variety of reusable items which aimed to make it easy for users to leave picnic litter at home before they ventured into the forest. 585 families applied to receive one of our reusable kits, highlighting the popularity of reusables and desire for these kinds of products.

Based on the feedback of these products, we created a vlog and inspiration guide encouraging people to hold their own litter-free picnic using reusable items that are commonly found in the home or can be purchased easily online.

In 2018, we promoted these during national picnic week with a social media campaign and competition, where we invited local residents to share tips on having a zero-waste or litter-free picnic and tell us where their favourite picnic destination was in the Forest of Dean.

The inspiration vlog has 6,884 views (as of 10th November): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtzOxd-uRcY.

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Mountain Bikers Anti-litter posters and litter biker

The Forest of Dean is home to some of the best cycling terrains in the country. People visit from all across the UK to take on the forest’s variety of trails which challenge riders of all levels and abilities. The vast majority of cyclists clearly love their forest and take their litter home but discarded bike related items including sports drinks, energy gels, discarded inner tubes, and nitrous oxide cartridges can still be found across trails and after bike events.

We know that mountain bikers are often highly active on social media and we knew there were certain areas in the Forest of Dean where mountain bikers congregate at the start and end of trails. Therefore, we decided to create a highly visual art installation which related the issue of littering directly to mountain bikers. We commissioned litterartist Michelle Reader to produce a bespoke piece of artwork using bike-related litter.

Anti-litter posters were additionally created for mountain bike businesses to display and communicate the issue to customers.

The art installation was popular and was shared widely on social media, particularly Twitter and Instagram. The café where we hosted the sculpture requested to keep the installation for a longer period of time due to positive feedback from visitors. The installation will be touring Forestry Commission sites over Autumn/Winter 2018.

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Scouts and Guide Groups

The Joint Waste Team at the Forest of Dean District Council led on the development and management of a Love Your Forest badge for scout and guide groups.

The badge was created and offered to groups who conducted a litter pick and had a visit from a member of the Love Your Forest group. A total of 328 scouts and brownies (aged between 6 – 14) and 80 adult leaders/helpers took part in the litter picks. These individuals were from 18 scouts/cubs/badgers and 2 brownie groups.

The litter picks conducted by these groups resulted in 20 black sacks of litter and various fly-tipped items being recovered from across the Forest of Dean. The badges seem to be an excellent way to communicate the litter message to these groups and will continue to be managed as part of ongoing Love Your Forest activities.

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F U R T H E R I M PA C T Wider Litter Picking Data General litter monitoring has been conducted by the Forest of Dean District Council’s Joint Waste team. As part of their ongoing work in the forest they contract litter-picks to clear roadsides throughout the Forest of Dean.

During April to June 2018 the street cleansing crews litter picked 179 km of roadsides and collected 470 bags of litter equating to 2.6 bags per km. This is a reduction of the number of bags per km being collected compared to the same period last year, which was 6 bags per km.

This indicates a change in the litter levels within the Forest of Dean but does not cover inside the forest itself.

The Foresters’ Forest group, a member of Love Your Forest, hosts regular litter-picking events inviting volunteers and members of the community to help clean-up problem areas in the forest. In 2018, 12 litter picks took place collecting over 286 bags of litter between February and September.

Alongside this, there are other independent litter picking individuals and groups operating in the wider area which we do not have data from.

Media Reach Throughout the campaign we have issued a number of local and national press releases to raise awareness of our different interventions. Coverage has included: BBC Inside Out, BBC World News, BBC Radio 5 Live, Heart FM, the BBC main news site, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Mirror and Huffington Post. The total media reach across the three years is 14,240,340.

2016 Media reach from 16 broadcast features, 12 press mentions, and 4 trade press mentions.

12,800,000 people 2017

Media reach from 2 broadcast features, 8 press mentions*, and 9 trade press mentions.

868,000 people 2018

Media reach from 12 press mentions*, and 6 trade press mentions.

572,340 people

*press mentions in year 2017 and 2018 do not include the weekly Love Your Forest articles published by the Forest of Dean District Council. 13 articles were released each year with an estimated reach of 46,034 per article.

Social Media Reach

1,484 page likes

1,320 tweets

687,957 people reached

43,653 people reached

47,915 views

Facebook A local Love Your Forest Facebook page for the campaign has a total of 1,484 likes. Posts from all campaign elements are regularly posted and advertised through the page which is highly engaged with by the local community.

Twitter A total of 1,320 tweets were made using the #LoveYourForest hashtag. This was by a total of 360 different contributors and had a combined reach of 687,957 people.

Instagram A total of 70 Instagram posts were made talking about litter using the #LoveYourForest hashtag. This reached an estimated 43,653 people with 55 comments and 2,161 likes.

Website Views There were a total of 3,691 views on Hubbub’s Love Your Forest website pages. Each visitor had an average reading time of 1m 53s. The website was used to share campaign interventions and encourage members of the public to get involved with the campaign.

YouTube videos and vlogs A series of videos have been made as part of our Love Your Forest campaign, these have received a total number of 47,915 views (as of 10th November).

•

How to have a Zero Waste Picnic – 6,885 views - https://youtu.be/XtzOxd-uRcY

•

Showcasing the Trashconverter vlog – 5,861 views - https://youtu.be/pTtKnEnc1Qc

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Meet the Communitrees video – 25,413 views - https://youtu.be/JreFLEZQGkM

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Litter Shop of Horrors video – 9,756 views - https://youtu.be/0pKqVOmHaUw

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Qualitative Feedback An online questionnaire was conducted to gather feedback for the Love Your Forest campaign. 52 people completed the survey for a chance to win a zero-waste kitchen gadget kit.

The following feedback was provided:

95.9% of people agreed the campaign has successfully raised awareness on the issue of littering

61.2% of people agreed the campaign has reduced littering in the Forest of Dean

81.6%

of people agreed the campaign has increased their sense of pride in the local community

75.5% of people agreed the campaign has reduced littering in the Forest of Dean

R E C O M M E N D AT I O N S Over the course of the campaign we’ve had a unique insight into what does and doesn’t work when creating a bespoke anti-littering campaign. The following recommendations are what we feel made the Love Your Forest campaign successful and are relevant to anyone in the process of developing a campaign.

Do initial insights and find out what people want When the project began we held an initial meeting to get feedback from businesses, community groups and members of the community throughout the Forest of Dean. This helped guide the initial year of interventions and ensured we had a good relationship with these local groups. It was also valuable to gain feedback on the campaign from community groups as it developed. Every 12 months we held an evaluation meeting which looked at the year of events and invited people to provide input, this helped maintain support for the campaign and ensure it remained relevant to the local community.

Collaborate with as many people as possible We wanted to ensure that the campaign was created in collaboration with and guided by community groups. As such, we invited groups within the Forest of Dean to join stakeholder discussions. This helped ensure a sense of local ownership and meant that the campaign was consistently steered by local groups who had a clear understanding of what would work based on past experiences. As a result of these collaborations, the campaign has grown in strength each year enabling the campaign to expand and create a larger impact. Having a number of collaborators also helps ensure the campaign has longevity and will ensure the campaign goes on to have impact in the future.

Use rewards to engage with people and start a conversation The Trashconverter visited 64 locations, engaged with over 5,323 people and collected over 186 bags of litter and recycling from community events across the Forest of Dean. Being able to offer a small reward for people visiting the Trashconverter kick-started a conversation with people at events, enabling us to talk to them about the issue of littering in a new and interesting way. This allowed us to reach people who are notoriously difficult to talk to about sustainability issues such as high school students in KS3 & KS4.

Use proven behaviour change techniques and build interventions based on these The Communitrees were made based on the theory that the feeling of being watched reduces anti-social behaviour.

We were able to creatively build on this idea and engage with school children during crafting workshops and encourage families to hunt for them as an activity to do over the summer holidays. 3,500 activity sheets were taken by families for Communitree hunts over the duration of the campaign. What initially started as a research driven intervention became something innovative and creative, allowing us to further spread the Love Your Forest message.

Make engagement relevant to the audience Targeting specific groups ensures that there is a captive audience who are more likely to take the messages on board. Think about where the audience you’re trying to capture is and try to engage with them there. This makes it much easier to talk to them about the issue of littering and makes it more relevant and important for them. For example, our mountain biker engagement art installation was a highly visible display located at a cafÊ at the start of the mountain bike trails, this ensured it was seen by a high volume of the targeted audience.

FUTURE PLANS Over the past three years we have tested a variety of different interventions and gathered feedback from the Love Your Forest stakeholders and residents within the Forest of Dean.

Based on the positive feedback from the campaign, Lucozade Ribena Suntory have agreed to fund another year of the campaign. In 2019, we will work with local groups to deliver the elements of the campaign which have proven effective at communicating an anti-littering message. This will include a continued tour of the Trashconverter, more school visits, targeted online campaigns including litter-free picnic week, and we plan to further build capacity within the Forest of Dean to ensure local groups can take on elements of the project and ensure they can continue to engage with residents and visitors in the future.

As with all our campaigns, Hubbub plans to replicate the successful elements of the campaign in other projects and expand these ideas to further areas. Any groups or communities wishing to bring elements of Love Your Forest or other campaigns to their local area are encouraged to get in touch.

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ABOUT Hubbub Hubbub is a charity which explores innovative ways to interest mainstream consumers in important sustainability issues, through different ‘hubs’ of activity: Food; Fashion; Homes; Neighbourhoods; Sport and Leisure. Hubbub’s previous campaigns have included #SquareMileChallenge, the UK’s first large scale solution to coffee cup recycling and #PumpkinRescue to encourage more people to eat the carvings from their Halloween Pumpkins.

W W W . H U B B U B . O R G . U K / Email: hello@hubbub.org.uk Twitter: @hubbubuk / Instagram: @HelloHubbub

Lucozade Ribena Suntory Lucozade Ribena Suntory (LRS) is one of the largest soft drinks suppliers in the UK and Ireland. Its much-loved brands include Lucozade Energy, Lucozade Sport, Ribena and Orangina. Located in the heart of the Forest of Dean, LRS’s Coleford factory has been producing great-tasting drinks since 1946. The business is driven by its “Yatte Minahare” (‘Go for it!’) spirit. Its role is to have a positive impact on the lives of consumers by providing them with a responsible choice of great-tasting drinks, and enabling them to lead more active lifestyles.

For further information, please visit W W W . L R S U N T O R Y. C O M

Joint Waste Team, Forest of Dean District Council The Joint Waste Team works on behalf of five of Gloucestershire’s authorities: Cheltenham Borough Council, Cotswold District Council, Gloucestershire County Council, Tewkesbury Borough Council - as well as the Forest of Dean District Council - to deliver waste, recycling and street care services.

Forest of Dean District Council is responsible for keeping public land and highways across the district clear of litter.

This involves the cleansing of towns and villages, A & B roads and other highways. The council is also responsible for the removal of fly tipping on public land and emptying litterbins. The Council spends in excess of £430,000 per year on litter clearance so changing the anti-social behaviour of littering is of high importance.

Forestry Commission Forestry Commission England is the government department in England responsible for protecting, expanding and promoting the sustainable management of woods and forests and increasing their value to society and the environment.

Further information can be found at W W W . F O R E S T R Y. G O V. U K / E N G L A N D

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Foresters’ Forest The Foresters’ Forest is a Heritage Lottery Funded Landscape Partnership programme, formed from an association of 32 partner organisations and local community groups within the Forest of Dean www.forestersforest.uk. Forestry Commission England is the lead partner within this partnership programme which encompasses 38 projects, one of which is the Love Your Forest project. People wishing to get involved and volunteer for litter picks should contact forestersforest@fvaf.org.uk.

Wye Valley and Forest of Dean Tourism Wye Valley and Forest of Dean Tourism was formed in 2006 and is the official Destination Management Organisation representing the interests of over 300 members. Managed by a 10-strong voluntary board, supported by professional advisors, the Forestry Commission and the area of outstanding natural beauty, it is funded by member subscriptions, the Forest of Dean District Council, Monmouthshire Council (via VisitWales), the Forestry Commission, and grant funding for specific projects.

#LOVEYOURFOREST WITH THANKS TO

W W W. H U B B U B . O R G . U K REGISTERED CHARITY NO. 1158700

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#LOVEYOURFOREST

W W W. H U B B U B .O R G .U K

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