15. Interview - Alex Robinson, Hubbub

James Piper: Hello, welcome to Talking Rubbish, a weekly podcast delving deep into the world of recycling and discussing the truth behind snappy headlines and one sided stories. I'm James Piper, author of the Rubbish Book and I'm joined by Robby Staniforth, my far from Rubbish friend. And we are joined by Alex Robinson, our far ah from Rubbish guest. So Robby and I are joined today by Alex, who's the CEO of environmental charity Hubbub and Hubbub are well known for some of the most amazing and creative campaigns in the environmental space. Anytime you, you've seen like something about recycling in your street and you thought, oh that's really clever, I, ah, bet Hubbub were behind it. Cause the things they come up with are incredible. And we are gonna talk through some of the, some of our favourite campaigns today, things we've been involved with, things we haven't been involved with and hopefully get some just amazing insights from Alex. So Alex, thanks for joining us today.

Alex Robinson: Hi James. Hi Robbie. Nice to be here.

James Piper: We gave you a bit of an intro last week. So we spent a lot of time talking about Hubbub and we literally did like, I don't know, 15 minutes on pumpkins.

Robbie Staniforth: Robbie, how much pumpkins can we do? That much?

Alex Robinson: I'll try and squeeze in. Let's try and squeeze in a little pumpkin later on.

James Piper: Missed the opportunity to say squash, but that's okay, that's all right. Oh, goodness me. That was a gore joke.

Alex Robinson: Yeah, I've been toying with that. I've been toying with that.

James Piper: Robbie. We had a bit of a discussion, didn't we, about our interviews? Because normally we just bring the guest in and we just ask questions and then we had some feedback that actually people were missing our little banter intro that we tend to do. So we thought, why don't we just do a bit of a, What have we heard this week? What's happened to us so that everyone who enjoys the intro can have that. Do you think that's a good idea?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, they got to get their money's worth.

James Piper: And I said everyone likes our intro, but that isn't strictly true. Robbie. I did get a message on our WhatsApp, like last night, this is so live last night, saying, and I don't know which episode they were listening to, but obviously we had quite a long intro and I got this WhatsApp come through saying, hurry up fellas, it's been 14 minutes of Robbie laughing. And I just thought, I just thought, this isn't live. I'm not like sat with the WhatsApp in front of me going, robbie, we just had a message in. We gotta get out of this intro.

Robbie Staniforth: So 40 minutes is not long enough.

Robbie has been very busy on WhatsApp, Robbie

James Piper: I see we've introduced chapters now on Apple. So if you're listening on Apple, you can just skip straight out of the intro. So feel free to do that.

Robbie Staniforth: Skip all of Robbie. That's what you're saying, James, that's very hu.

James Piper: It has actually been very busy on WhatsApp, Robbie. Back in episode nine, six episodes ago, we talked about LDP and HDPE, talked about the molecules, talked about flexible versus rigid. And then Adam from RAP was whatsapping me going, look, guys, you got that wrong. You know, there's some flexible HTTP, there's some rigid ldpe. And we joked about how Adam having Instant access to WhatsApp might be a mistake because he's just going to message every episode.

Robbie Staniforth: Corrections coming left, right and centre from Adam.

James Piper: Well, that is what has happened. He's evolved. He's evolved from the simple text message, the humble text message, to the voice note.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, gosh. So you've got long voice notes now from him to listen through.

James Piper: Should we do something we've never done on this podcast? We're going to play the voice note, so.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, wow. Okay.

James Piper: Assuming the producers are quite happy with this and it's easy to get in, let's play the voice note now.

Adam corrects mistake made by Robby on PE films and PP films

Adam: Hi, guys, it's Adam here, longtime, listener, first time caller, thrilled to have been name checked on the podcast net today. I feel like I've, I've made it, my career is complete. I'm a real celebrity. So thanks very much. But true to form, I am going to have to pick up Robby on, a slight error he made when he was talking about the difference between PE films and PP films and used a serial bag as an example of PP films. Unfortunately, Robbie, mate, you're wrong. That's actually a pe and it's, it's the exemption for the idea that PE films stretchy and PP is not. So, yeah, sorry, mate, I hate to show up like this, but there we are. Otherwise you guys nailed it pretty much generally. So, yeah, keep a good work. Look forward to next week.

Alex Robinson: Bye.

Adam accused Robbie of saying cereal box liners were made of pp

James Piper: Robby, do you know what I like best about that voice note?

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, it's a bit worrying, that voice note.

James Piper: I know it made you sound awful.

Robbie Staniforth: I'm offended. Oh, not offended. I'm embarrassed.

James Piper: I think you'll find that Adam was offended. He was fuming that we said that serial bag liners were made of pp. My favourite bit of the voice note is he said, he accused you. you were the criminal. You were the one who had said cereal box line as a pp.

Robbie Staniforth: I do remember talking about stretch, stretchiness.

James Piper: And I think, like, if you want to continue believing that I know what I'm talking about. Robbie doesn't, please stop this podcast now, because I'm about to admit that it was me that said cereal boxes were made of PP and not Robbie.

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yeah. So take that, Adam. It was James you should be blaming.

James Piper: Yeah, I'm fuming. So, I had a little listen back. Listen Back to episode 11

00:05:00

James Piper: to try and work out who said it, and it was definitely me. So Adam is right. I have no idea where I got my source from. Well, I do know where I got my source from. My source was my book. I have no idea where my book got its source from.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay, so this is going to have to be in the fifth edition. You're going to have to be correcting that, James.

James Piper: Yeah. So sorry if you've got a copy of the rubbish book and it says cereal box liners are made of pp. And sorry, if you listen to this podcast, you also thought the same. I'm glad that's been updated. So thank you, Adam, from wrap. Thank you so much for sorting it out and keeping us correct and honest. We appreciate it.

Robby saw big news this week in the world of packaging and recycling

What else have we had this week? So, Robby, you were at an event last night, weren't you?

Robbie Staniforth: Yes, yeah, very kindly. Was, invited along to an event with some of my colleagues and I got to saw the big news this week in the world of packaging and recycling. Is that the quality street, what was once a tin and then became the plastic tub and is now becoming a cardboard box? I think there's going to be a limited run in. I think it's in Tesco. I'm right in saying, they've done this cardboard box to try and make it more recyclable and, easy for the cardboard to be recycled. And so I've gotten it. They're not even in Tesco's yet. And I have in my hands brought back from last night from Caitlin. Thank you. Caitlin at, Nestle gave me a sneak peek at this cardboard selection box which we're going to see in store, this Christmas.

James Piper: And we. So we have one. We've seen it. Ah, it's amazing. Yeah. Caitlin very kindly said she was giving that to the two of us so that we could have a look at it. And. Yeah, really great. And what I find Amazing about Quality street is I have this, what do I call it? It's the Mandela effect, isn't it, where you sort of think something is happening all the time and then you realise that's not strictly true. I went to do a presentation to Nestle years ago and I was trying to look at the different types of packaging they had and how recyclable they were. I went round buying up loads of their packaging to take with me so that we could kind of talk through and put in order on a line, which one was more recyclable, less recyclable, more collected, less collected, et cetera, et cetera. And I couldn't get hold of Quality street and I just thought, tins, tubs of Quality street are available all year round and they are not. They are a very Christmas, product and you actually can't buy tins or tubs of Quality street throughout the year. And I just. For me, that was a big revelation.

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, no, for sure. And we're gonna definitely do something on the Christmas theme, aren't we, in a future podcast? So maybe we'll talk a little bit.

James Piper: Yeah, we will live eat these Quality Streak. We'll just get together for half an hour and eat this tub of Quality street.

Robbie Staniforth: Instead of 14 minutes of me laughing, it will be 14 minutes of me masticating. I'm sure people are like that.

James Piper: So thank you so much, Caitlin from Nestle.

James: We normally give away a gift when we have a guest on

And we normally give away a bit of a. A gift when we have a guest on. That's what we like to do. So the first week, Natalie gave away the signed books and I know the person who received those really enjoyed them. and for Nick's episode for Bower, we're giving away the starter kit for, we're giving away the kitchen starter kit, which is really great. So what are we going to do? Should we give away this Quality street tub?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah, because we've prepped Alex really well in advance to come and bring along something to give away, haven't we, James?

James Piper: I'm refusing to pick our guests based on quality of gift they could bring.

Robbie Staniforth: that's probably ethically sound.

James Piper: That's ethically.

Alex Robinson: I'm happy to have a rummage around the office, see what we can come up with. If that's part of the condition of me appearing on this podcast.

James Piper: Do you know what? That would be so good, Alex. So we have a couple of weeks before this episode goes out. We're obviously recording it a bit earlier when it goes out. So on socials, I will put a picture of certainly the Quality street. And then, Alex, you dig through your storeroom, see what you can find, and then we'll add that to the social media post that we put out. So, again, if you want to win a tub of Quality Streets that has never been seen before, except between Robbie, me, Nestle and quite a few people last night, and probably not in Tesco's, but might be because it'll be November when this episode goes out. and you want to win whatever Alex is gonna find in the office, which could be something from our cupboard. Yeah, that could be amazing.

Alex Robinson: Or it could be. Could be less amazing.

Robbie Staniforth: It could be good, it could be not.

Alex Robinson: I feel like I want to manage expectations here with the quality of what's lying around in our office.

Robbie Staniforth: But, I don't want to give a spoiler to the rest of the episode. We might get into it, but couldn't you give away a ballot bin? Wouldn't that be amazing? Everybody wants one of those ballot bins, don't they?

James Piper: I mean, that is quite valuable. We would end up with quite a few likes.

Alex Robinson: Valuable? It's like 12 kilos of steel and glass, which is definitely what people want turning up on their doorstep when they.

James Piper: Listen to this podcast.

Alex Robinson: yeah, I'll hand deliver it.

James Piper: Oh, I like it. Okay, cool. There you go. You heard it first. It's gonna be a ballot bin. Shall we talk about what the ballot bin is? Shall we get on with the interview proper?

Robbie Staniforth: Yeah,

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Robbie Staniforth: let's do it.

Alex: I love Hubbub. I think you guys are innovative and fun

James Piper: All right. So, Alex, great to have you on. And, I mean, I don't know how long I've been working with Hubbub, but it must be. It's many, many years we've been doing stuff together. I think you guys are, like, so innovative and fun and when Robbie and I set up this podcast, we said we want to do one of those two things and which one have we gone with?

Robbie Staniforth: And that thing is neither.

James Piper: Yeah, I think you guys are so innovative and fun and like Robby and I, as listeners will know, love a pun. You guys are super creative and the names you come up with for your projects, I absolutely love. So do you want to give us, like, an idea? Just give the listeners an idea of a couple of your favourite project names.

Alex Robinson: Yeah, sure.

We wanted to find a city that didn't have any recycling bins really

So, well, we have FFS campaign hashtag ffs, which for us is for fish's Sake. which is a project that's all about keeping plastic out of waterways, but, you know, the one that comes to mind. And, ah, maybe I shouldn't Be. Maybe I shouldn't be mentioning this because it's either the pinnacle or it's the nadir of our project names. We did a campaign that was all about raising awareness of the fact that cigarette butts are made out of plastic. And we called it what's in your butt? And it came out. I remember the brainstorm where one of my colleagues, who may or may not want to be named, came up with this idea and we were collapsing with laughter. I never thought it was actually going to make it to the. Through the various stages to get to be the campaign. But we ended up on the streets of Stratford with these made, up newspapers and all of these other, all of these other, like, campaign materials, shouting about what's in your butt. So that's maybe not proudest moment, but.

James Piper: I can only imagine what those marketing materials look like.

Alex Robinson: They're good. It's a, A beautiful campaign, but it's a crude and childish name and we've.

James Piper: Done really cool projects together. So, we talked, I think we talked on this podcast before about Leads by example, which was a campaign we did up in Leeds, unsurprisingly, where we identified. We wanted to find a city that didn't have any recycling bins really, and didn't do on the go, recycling. And Leeds became an obvious candidate, not just for the name, but because they didn't have recycling on the go. And so we approached you guys, didn't we, and said, look, how do we make this happen? How do we make this work? And I just, I really enjoyed that campaign.

Alex Robinson: But it wasn't that hard to find a place that didn't have recycling bins because at least at that time is only a minority of councils had recycling bins on the, on the street. And I mean, a big reason for that is that they just weren't working. So if you even now in a lot of places, if you go and look in a recycling bin on the street, which I know not everyone does, probably on this podcast, we're in a minority. This kind of thing, you're going to find, like banana skins, crisp packets, like anything and everything that isn't recycling. So we brought together coalition of, the council and local NGOs, but also all the people who make the packaging that needs to be recycled that we consume on the go, and came up with a scheme and, interventions to get people to actually recycle the right things when they're out and about on the street, because we are. Everyone's eating and drinking out and about Much more than they were, than they were before. And I think there was so much to this that was about making it simple. It was about, like, focusing on glass and aluminium and plastic. So it was like bottles and cans, because that's the stuff that always gets recycled, is of high value and is easy to communicate. And then we made these bright yellow bins with really simple iconography because we know that people spend less than two seconds at a bin.

James Piper: Do you know what I love about those bins? We were tasked with, doing surveys. I was up at Leeds quite a few times, as we were developing this campaign, and I was like, just grabbing people on the street and saying, do you recycle? So this is before we put the bins in and then after we put the bins in, I was doing similar surveys. And what I found, it was so funny. What I found was, people would buy a coffee in the morning and we forget how much we are creatures of habit. You buy a coffee from the same place every morning, you buy the same coffee, you drink it in about the same time every day and you put it in the same bin. And you might not think you do that, but a, lot of people from my surveying do that. We installed, I don't know, 35, something like that, bright yellow bins all over the city. And I'll always remember this guy who. I pulled him over and I said, hi, sir, I can see you're enjoying your cup of coffee. He said, yes. I said, and where will you be

00:15:00

James Piper: disposing of that when you finished with it? And he said, oh, there's a bin down the road I'll use. And I said, have you noticed any new recycling bins in the city at all or any new installations? And he said, no, I haven't noticed anything. And he was leaning on the bright yellow bin, stood next to a giant installation we had put in Leeds city centre for shipping container that we put in Leeds city centre, which was explaining all about the campaign. And this guy, honestly, if I could have photographed that moment, he was just leaning on the bright yellow bin, staring off into this massive shipping container that just arrived in the city that had a massive Leads by Example sign on it, going, now, I haven't noticed anything. And for me, that was like the pinnacle. I tell that story often because I'm like, that is how that is.

Robbie Staniforth: That's what you're up against.

James Piper: That's what we have to fight against. And I notice it in myself when I buy packaging, when I buy lunch, I notice how Much. I am a creature of habit. And I have maybe three or four bins in the city centre that I use because I know where the recycling ones are. I have very specific places I will shop for lunch if I don't bring my lunch in. And you just realise you're battling against something that is actually quite hard. And I think, as you say, one of the key stats you've came out with that, is always in my head is about how long people pause over a bin.

Alex Robinson: Yeah. I mean, I thought to begin with, that was just an anecdote about how ineffective our campaign was, but it is.

James Piper: I am very sorry. That story hasn't. That is true. It doesn't paint us in a great light.

Alex Robinson: It's okay. We've published the results. They're good. But it's so. It's so hard to grab people's attention. and we're thinking about it because we are people who are, you know, through our work and perhaps just natural inclination, are kind of focused on this stuff. Most people aren't. They've got so many other things to be thinking about as they go through their day. Like, this stuff is, like, low on people's minds. So you really have to work hard to, kind of get their attention and then to make it so easy, like, make it easier to do the right thing than it is to do the wrong thing.

One of the ways you grabbed their attention was with the bubble bin

Robbie Staniforth: It's one of the ways you grabbed their attention was with the bubble bin. Can you explain what that was? Because I was there on the day of the launch, and I just remember these bubbles, like, billowing into the distance.

James Piper: Can I just say, the bubble bin might have got this guy's attention. That might have been for sure. If he'd been leaning on the bubble bin, I suspect he would have noticed.

Alex Robinson: Well, maybe that could be the prize for your listener, because that might well be in our storage unit. Storage unit somewhere.

James Piper: You can't give that away. I want that. Why do we keep giving away presents that I want?

Alex Robinson: You might have to fix it first. The bubble bin was a bin that. It's kind of what it sounds like when you put something in it. It blew bubbles. That was it. But it was kind of magic. It attracted children and families. People stood around it looking for things to put in it. yeah, we have. In the past, we've had talking bins, we've had musical bins, but I feel like the bubble bin, really took the biscuit. But I would also say putting tech in bins, we have learned many times. in fact, we're about to do it again, but we'll come on to that later. putting tech in bins is tough because they're on the street, that stuff gets a kicking and it's exposed. So I love, I love the bubble bin, but there's a reason that every street corner doesn't have one.

James Piper: Amazing. I remember seeing it, it's so good. And you got some great photos for the report of the bubbles coming out. I couldn't picture it right now. Yeah, amazing.

Hubbard has launched pilot project to increase recycling in 15 UK cities

And, Leeds by Example, obviously that was one city, obviously the pun was very specific. That spun out into in the Loop, which is the idea of Leeds by example but multiplied out across cities. Do you just want to tell us how that happened?

Alex Robinson: Yeah, absolutely. The whole approach at Hubbard is to try stuff out and see what works and then attempt to scale it. And so Leeds by Example was the pilot, that was the experiment. and clearly we went for the best name for that city without thinking about the scaling stage. so it ended up being in the Loop and that's now in 15 towns and cities across the UK. We took the leads thing and we were like, okay, we want to see how this works in some other places. So we did it in Edinburgh, we did it in Swansea. Kind of really hands on, like doing the same thing again. Because every city has its own different set of circumstances, also its own recycling infrastructure. So like, could we do glass, you know, in different cities, different materials? and once we'd really cracked it and we saw that everywhere we were doing it, the recycling rates were going up and the contamination of the bins was going down, we realised that what we could do was create a, ah, toolkit to help people do it without us being on the ground delivering it, so councils could introduce it themselves. So, we've been recently giving grants to councils

00:20:00

Alex Robinson: and the councils can then use that to put our bins in, use our designs, use all the information we give them. We do some advice and consultancy on that. and it's working really well. I think we've got 500 of these in the Loop bins around the country. We've collected over two and a half million plastic and glass bottles and cans. and in, in Lambeth, which is one of our most recent ones, we saw the quantity of recycling go up 140%. And that's like, with a really light touch from us. So we've got a really scalable method for cracking recycling on the go for these, like these key materials that many. The drinks, containers, I hope we'll continue to see that, like, roll out. There's no reason it couldn't be the standard approach on our streets around the uk, but we need a bit more support from government, to do that.

James Piper: Robbie's already mentioned that you might give away a ballot bin. We, you know, you'd be trucking it all over the country to whoever's won it. But, I don't think we can promise a ballot bin. It's so big.

Robbie Staniforth: That's an overstretch.

James Piper: But ballot bins are, My, ballot, bins are my personal favourite, certainly. I remember back in the day, it was years ago, I saw a ballot bin go viral on social media and I remember sending it to you and saying, alex, you've gone viral.

Alex Robinson: And you were like, was that the Ewan McGregor one? I can't remember. Ewan McGregor posted it on Instagram in the early days and that.

James Piper: Oh, it must. It must have been that. It must have been that.

I think the banner bin is absolutely genius. And I think, ah, it's a

I think the banner bin is absolutely genius. So some of our listeners might be familiar with it. Most won't. So let's introduce the concept to them because I just think this is great.

Alex Robinson: Yeah. I will try to describe this. This is obviously an audio podcast because usually I find myself just showing people a picture because it comes to life so much better.

James Piper: Well, do you know what I can try? Okay, I'm going to try something here. This is great. You know how I like tech. I'm going to try something here because I think there is a way of. When I do the chapters in Apple, there is a way of me having a specific picture that comes up on a chapter. Okay, so we're gonna. I haven't tried this yet. Let's try it. So when I'm preparing this podcast to go out, I will put a picture of your ballot bin up here just as we said. Ballot bin. Okay. So again, I think this will only work on Apple. I, feel like we're heavily promoting Apple, but they've been good to us, so that's okay. I think it'll only work on Apple, but maybe Cheque Spotify. But if you're on Apple and you're listening to our podcast now, write in this conversation. Have a look. And you're now playing. And I reckon there'll be a picture of a ballot bin there. if I've got this right, and if there isn't, then that was a great experiment. And I won't do that again because I won't know till it. I won't know until it goes live.

Alex Robinson: And for people like me who persist in using, like, niche podcast software, I'll try and describe the ballot bin. So it is. It is a large yellow voting ashtray, which means you've got something that, like, it's, about 80 centimetres high or something and half as wide. And it's an ashtray that fixes onto a wall or a lamppost or something. And at the top there's a question. So the first question was, and, this will date it a little bit. Who's the best footballer in the world, Ronaldo or Messi? And then below that, there's two glass columns and a little hole above each column. So when a smoker disposes of their cigarette butt, they choose the answer that they want to vote for. And the cigarette butts mount up to form a kind of live pole, like a bar chart of cigarette butts. Which sounds kind of disgusting, doesn't it? It's behind glass, it's clean, there's no smell. And, so this uses a behaviour change technique called nudge to get people voting with their cigarette butt. And it sounds kind of frivolous, but it's been incredibly effective. And I think, ah, it's a really important example of, like, how we need to look at some of these problems differently. Because when we came up with it, it's about eight years ago, it was in this project where we were trying to cut litter in a street, in a busy street in central London and doing, like, observational exercises, just basically standing outside clubs and bars watching smokers. there were ashtrays there already. There were also signs saying, you get fined if you litter. And people were dropping cigarette butts on the floor anyway, because that's the habit that they were into. However, they were, like, all locked in conversation. And we knew a lot of the people who were littering were, young men. So we thought, okay, well, what do they care about if it's not disposing of their cigarette? But properly, it's like, well, they care about football. So let's try this. So we asked them a question, we preloaded the Ronaldo side a little bit just to annoy people. And then, and then saw what happened. And this was one of a number of things that didn't all work. But the ballot bin really, really took off.

00:25:00

Alex Robinson: And, we only had this one prototype in central London, and it was working really well. And the phone started ringing in the hubbub office. Like, TV companies wanting to cover it, people around the world wanting to buy one. And we're like, wow. we've got one like semi functional.

Robbie Staniforth: Prototype here that's amazing. Shows just what a good idea it is.

Alex Robinson: Yeah. And it's like good ideas spread. Right.

James Piper: And it didn't even blow bubbles. Like that's mad. It was popular. Popular without the bubbles.

Alex Robinson: But there was another one that played music. There was another. There were two trials. People forget like. Well, people forget it because we don't talk about it really. But what we had this other ashtray that when you dispose of your cigarette butt, it played a little tune, but that's not much of an incentive. Also, you've got to do the good thing first to get the reward, if you consider it a reward to have it play a little tune.

Robbie Staniforth: So you might not know in advance.

Alex: I'm still trialling it. I want to know if it works

So you don't sort of know to interact.

Alex Robinson: Yeah.

Robbie Staniforth: Whereas if you're really keen to steer the vote, you'll definitely put it in one of those, one of those columns as you describe them. So I don't think we need the photo, James. That was pretty darn well described. Alex. I think. I think we can sack off the photo. You don't need to all move to Apple. Although Apple have been kind for us.

James Piper: Please, I don't care. I'm still trialling it. I want to know if it works. Okay. The photo will disappear now. There we go. That's a good test. We'll see if that works.

Robbie's ballot bin aims to reduce plastic pollution from cigarette butts

Alex, I saw a post, I think it was you posting on LinkedIn the other day with a load of copycat bins. So obviously it's a successful project if other people are copying it. And it was reminiscent to me of, Do you remember the ad that KFC did where KFC did an ad where they did the A to Z, you know, afc, bfc, cfc. They took out a full out of the paper of everyone's copycat A to Z, left out the KFC and put there's only one kfc. And your picture just reminded me of that because it was just a page of ballot bins.

Alex Robinson: Yeah. Well, you're kind to say it's reminiscent. I was blatantly stealing that idea from KFC. That was 100% the inspiration.

James Piper: I genuinely didn't know that. That's not. Yeah.

Alex Robinson: So I'm glad.

James Piper: Great.

Alex Robinson: I'm glad it, I'm glad that it resonated. I think KFC's one said at the bottom like, guys, you're welcome or something. so, yeah, so, so the ballot bin, like it took off as an idea and we found A way to commercialise it and sell it. And that was actually what brought me into hubbub was like to work on the ballot bin to try and figure out how we do that. But at the same time that we started to sell it all around the world, we started noticing these copycats pop up. and I'd say they fall into like, broadly into two brackets. We've got like the really well intentioned copies and they might be. We get lots of students who will do it on their campuses and they make their own for projects and stuff.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay, yeah. Design technology project or something.

Alex Robinson: Yeah, yeah, I guess so. Or it's like some kind of communications behaviour change, psychology students or something. We don't tend to dig into that. Maybe I should ask them, Robbie, why are you doing this? Anyway, and then the other one is we get them copied in countries that wouldn't buy one anyway because they'd just be so expensive to buy them with the shipping. So like a memorable one in Cambodia for example, that was super diy, but really, but really charming and I love all those ones. we also have like, there's businesses of, people who've set up to create copies of it and sell those and really I feel a bit more mixed about those. I think I would mind less if they credited us, or like responded to our emails, but they sort of.

Robbie Staniforth: Say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Do you feel that's the case if they, they've set up their own business and not credited you? I think that's a bit.

Alex Robinson: I feel like, I feel like it's naughty not to credit, but, you know, we're a charity and our, desire with the ballabine is first of all to reduce the plastic pollution that comes from cigarette butts because it's the most littered item in the world. People don't know they're plastic. People don't know how many toxins and chemicals are in them and they just go straight down the drain and into our waterways. So if you're, if you're passionate about plastic pollution and so on, then cigarette butts is a great thing to focus on. So we have relatively limited resources, we're doing tonnes of other stuff. If someone wants to dedicate their life and a business to solving this problem with a product that looks a bit like ours, ultimately that's really cool, isn't it? They could send us a donation maybe now and again. but I think it's great. And it also just shows what a sticky idea, what a sticky Idea is.

James Piper: Well, maybe they could do a ballot bin that collected money instead of cigarettes and then they could send you that money. You mentioned earlier you don't like putting electronics in bins, but I'm pretty sure I saw a ballot bin that had a screen on it. I'm sure I saw that on your website while I was having

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James Piper: a look for pumpkins. Are you going back to the electronic. Your electronic ways?

Alex Robinson: We are for our sins. I think you're talking about, the big ballot bin. We spent a long time trying to think of a name for this, but we ended up with the big ballot bin. Ah. It's a general waste or recycling bin, like a street bin. And it's black and it has like a yellow display, a bit like an old style railway, you know, ticker when they, where the platforms like ticked over. Do you remember those? Yellow. Yellow on black. Yeah.

Robbie Staniforth: Very retro.

James Piper: If the first ballot bin worked on Apple, we'll put this one up now.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay.

James Piper: Wow, this is. What a great opportunity for me to test this feature. I love it.

Alex Robinson: You're such an immersive, immersive podcast and m. So it only took us about seven years to figure out that we could do the same thing as the ballot bin, but on a larger scale. And so we made a few prototypes. We tried them out in Southampton and in Manchester and it was at just the time when Barbie vs Oppenheimer was kicking off. So we just jumped on that. We jumped on that trend. We had a Noel vs. Liam one in, in Manchester and in Southampton there was a, Scott Mills versus Craig David. They're the two big Southampton celebrities. And it just went absolutely viral. There's some guy on Instagram called the Archbishop of Banterbury. Have you come across this person?

Robbie Staniforth: Oh, yes, even I've heard of that and I'm not on the ground.

Alex Robinson: Yeah, I mean I felt kind of. I felt, I felt kind of old. It was new to me. But, and it was this brilliant moment where like, we were getting tonnes of attention for them, you know, on the BBC and ITV and da, da, da. But also we did some really, detailed measurement of their effectiveness and they had a. This is getting into real bin geekery here, but I think your listeners are probably. They're still with you by now. They're ready for it, aren't they? Yeah.

Robbie Staniforth: Good stuff, Alex. Good.

Alex Robinson: It has a 70% larger, catchment area than a normal bin. So people will gravel.

Robbie Staniforth: People will commute to the bin.

Alex Robinson: They'll commute to it, yeah. So it was incredibly. It was incredibly effective.

So we are currently redesigning this bin from the ground up

So we are currently redesigning this bin from the ground up. Ah. Including making it super waterproof and with the most robust electronics ever put in an outside bin. And, solar panels and everything. And, this is going to be coming to streets near you sometime next.

James Piper: Year, I hope that is. Well, I'm excited. That's so good.

Community Fridge Network helps communities share surplus food and prevent food waste

Robbie Staniforth: So, Alex, another one of the projects that you guys at Hubbub have been involved in is the Community Fridge Network. did it start in Forest of Dean? I'm sure I remember one being there somewhere. So. But, you know, where did it start? How has it grown?

James Piper: What is it?

Robbie Staniforth: What is it?

James Piper: Don't just start with where did it start. We need to actually explain. We can't just say Community Fridge Network and hope that everyone goes, oh, yeah, I know what that means. and do your own research, guys.

Alex Robinson: So Community Fridge, if you haven't come across it. And thanks for that prompt. Thanks for that prompt. Joe's. it's somewhere that brings people together to share surplus food, and meet up, learn new skills and prevent fresh food from going to waste. And it is, it is actually a fridge and it's in a community setting. So you find community fridges in village halls, community centres, church halls, schools, universities, all kinds of places like, like that. so it started, in Derbyshire, not in the Forest of Dean, I'm afraid.

Robbie Staniforth: Okay.

Alex Robinson: Yeah. In, fact, it was part of a project that was trying to tackle food waste in one place with lots of different interventions and it was one of the things that we tried. And what's kind of unique about it is that, is that it's somewhere that people can bring food to, surplus food to. And mostly that's volunteers collecting it from retailers, but it could come from cafes, restaurants, homes, community gardens, anywhere that has fresh surplus food and then anyone can take it. So it's not like a, it's not like a food bank where you have to be referred and where it's trying to, address, like, social need and deprivation. Our starting point was that there is a huge amount of surplus food in the system. Even at retail, which is a relatively small part of where food waste occurs, there is just vast amounts of food waste. So by doing this is a way of, redistributing surplus food, but also because it's about saving surplus food and having an environmental impact, there's so much less stigma around collecting

00:35:00

Alex Robinson: this food in the first place because you're, you know, you're being thanked for taking it. Right. And the idea really caught on, and loads of people, loads of community groups wanted to make this happen in their area as well. So over the last eight years we've gone from that, first one to over 650 community fridges. They're in like every single corner of.

James Piper: The UK and it's incredible. And that is amazing.

Alex Robinson: Is incredible. And they each are doing like one to four tonnes of food every, every month. they're really different spaces. You know, some of them might just be outside and open for a couple of hours a week and others are in thriving community centres that offer tonnes of other activities. We support the groups, to run their community fridges, to collect surplus food, to work with volunteers, on all of the health and safety stuff, getting their food certificates and everything like that. and so, yeah, we built out this network and the network itself is like a really live and thriving thing where some of the fridges are talking to each other. They really like the peer to peer aspect of it. And you can, if you want to see if there's one near you, you can go to the community fridgemap.orguk and just type in your town or your postcode and your nearest one will pop up. so it's been an incredible, it's been just incredible growth over the last few years. And, in some ways I've got mixed feelings about it because on one hand, if I say that we redistributed 18 million meals worth of food last year and we had 600,000 visitors, that feels like something to be incredibly proud of. On the other hand, the community fridge has changed quite a lot over the years and it would be hard to argue now that this is a purely environmental activity. Like, the reason that the fridges are so common and the reason they're distributing so much food is that there are so many people who don't have access to fresh, healthy food. And so there's huge and been growing, demand for it over the last few years. And so, so what we've been working towards is, is realising that our role is not just in facilitating the spread of food and stopping that going to waste, but it's also what is the fridge's role in building community res in the places where they are and what else can we help people to do who run community fridges to serve their communities? And so what we've seen over the last couple of years, what we've done, is created around 100 food hubs, which, really activities layered on top of a community fridge service. and that might be Anything from community meals, that might be tackling loneliness, for example. We've got growing schemes, cooking workshops, there's English as a foreign language through the medium of cooking workshops, services for refugees, all kinds of things. But it's all about how food can bring people together and how collectively tackling food waste together creates opportunities to, do so much more. So we've been able to build it out with co op and with the food hubs, with the support of Starbucks. And what we're really trying to do is move from like a one way distribution of food to how can we use it to move people up the food security ladder. How can we build community resilience? You know, what else can we do with this, with this network? Yeah.

James Piper: That is such a powerful, campaign. And thank you for sharing that with us in all that detail. It's incredible.

How do we educate people about recycling and what can be achieved

Alex, as you're here, I wrote this Guardian article which we've talked about. Rob is fuming. He's in Rubbish Weekly. We covered that.

Robbie Staniforth: That's not a real publication or at least if it is, I'm not in that.

Alex Robinson: I think if it was though, you would be in it. Yeah, he would.

James Piper: Absolutely. Front cover Mr. Rubbish. But when I wrote this Guardian article, it was really interesting because I had different groups, you know, the likes of Extinction, Rebellion and other groups, messaging me on X. Because the crux of my article was it's not perfect. Flexible plastic recycling is not perfect. Let's not pretend it's perfect. Let's not pretend everything's amazing, let's not pretend that everything you put in your supermarket collection point is getting recycled. But every day that goes by it's getting better. And when people step in and say this is getting burned or it's getting exported or whatever, it puts people off that behaviour change, it puts people off bringing their plastic back to a supermarket. And what I can tell you for certain is flexible plastic that you put in your general waste bin at home is definitely getting burnt or landfilled, it's definitely not getting recycled.

00:40:00

James Piper: Whereas if you take it back to a supermarket, they will pick out the stuff they want, which some of the supermarkets have reported as two thirds of the stuff. And they will recycle it and the stuff they don't want will go off and get burnt. And I just feel that's better. And that was the crux of my article. And what was interesting is I had quite a few groups message saying, but if you encourage people to recycle and if you encourage them to do this behaviour change, you're just giving everyone an excuse to buy more plastic. So if you tell them that, oh, we're going to set up this collection point and we're going to get your stuff recycled, then they don't feel guilty when they're buying flexible plastic. Right. And so this podcast is trying to find a balance. And both Robby and I acknowledge how hard that is because we want everyone to recycle as best as they possibly can. We want them to know what bin to put stuff into. We want them to feel confident in those decisions that they're making. And ultimately, we want to learn, you know, as Adam from RAP is helping us do and others, we want to get better. We want to learn. When we make mistakes, we want to talk about it. And that's great. So we've kind of got this, like, platform now, and we've got lots of listeners, we've got lots of people listening to us who are, who I'm worried, then go, well, they're telling me it can be recycled, so it's okay for me to buy this stuff. Which is the crux of the kind of extinction rebellion argument, I guess. While we've got your expertise, I would love to know what you think or how you think we get that balance. Right. How do we educate people about recycling and what can be achieved without giving across this message of, oh, and that means you can buy whatever you want. You can be the consumer you've always been. Because the reality is we all have to buy less and we all have to be more considerate about the materials that we buy.

Alex Robinson: That's a big question. And I've seen people saying, well, some of these schemes, they're kind of. They're a deliberate distraction to avoid actually taking any action. Which I think is, a tough angle, too, because I don't know how you would ever. It'd be hard to prove that. Right.

James Piper: Well, and also, what's the alternative? You don't put in place a collection scheme, you don't recycle. And then everyone says, hey, this is the worst packaging in the world. So you can't have, you can't have both messages. You can definitely have a message of, this is really bad packaging and no one's doing anything about it, or this is really bad packaging and we're doing something about it. But, I think it's. The challenge I have is if people then say, well, flexibles are bad and we shouldn't recycle them. It's like, but then you're promoting landfill, and I Just don't think anyone should be doing that. So that messaging is really complicated.

Alex Robinson: It is complicated and I think it's partly why we have to be so vigilant about actual greenwashing, because it makes people cynical and that cynicism kind of seeps through all of their interactions with black businesses and recycling and these schemes. Right. So, you know, like a lot of things, I think a big part of the answer is about, is about creating clarity. Like if we were really transparent about what was happening to the materials that are collected, if we could show where they were being recycled and into what more often, maybe if even people could track and understand what was happening to the recycling that was collected from their homes better, then I think quite a lot of this scepticism would go away. A lot of the reason I believe that there's so much scepticism in this area is because the industry feels, feels so opaque. And that, ah, your Guardian article was a response to the, to a project where people put a few, just a handful of trackers right in their waist, right. And that caught the imagination because it's helping people see what might be happening to something that they, they don't really know what is happening to. And, and I think the more that business can be transparent and the more that it can say what its targets are, how it's performing against them, and the public can find that then the more people are going to be open to having the conversation and less and less cynical about it. And I think that's true of recycling, frankly. Like, you know, I work across all kinds of areas of sustainability and environmental behaviour change and it's true everywhere. Like transparency is really important and the businesses that are transparent about what they're doing and create that, create the clarity for people and then also then create accountability for themselves are the ones that are able to build trust. And you know, there's this saying that sunlight is the best disinfectant, right? I think it's, I think it's so true. And if we want to get recycling and people's understanding of plastics and other materials that we use, then we really need to make sure that we're giving them the people who want it more clear

00:45:00

Alex Robinson: and reliable information. I guess the other thing is we need to be showing that we like, we're trying to move up the waste hierarchy, right? So, we are, I mean, hubbub at least, and loads of people in this sector, increasingly focused on reusable packaging, refillable packaging, just like minimising the amount of stuff that we use every day because that ultimately is the, is the only answer. So we also industry has to show is serious about tackling those solutions and putting the amount of resources in that show they're serious about those solutions too.

James Piper: Very powerful answer. Thank you, Alex, I appreciate that.

If you had one superpower to save the environment, what would it be

So Alex, I ask all our interviewees the same question at the end, which is, if you had one superpower to save the environment, what would it be?

Alex Robinson: So I listened to your first interview with Natalie Fay, who had a really wholesome answer. It was all about opening everyone's hearts to the beauty of nature. If I can paraphrase. And it's funny because I had already been thinking about what I think is the mischievous twin of her, of her answer. So my power, if you take a flagrantly anti environmental or anti nature action, it would make you really itchy. So if you just do something, if you just do something small like you buy some unnecessary crap on the Internet, late at night, then, you know, maybe you just get a bit of an inchy scalp for a bit. If you astroturf your lawn when you, you know, you astroturf your lawn even though you know better and you could afford to do something else, then I don't know, that's a few weeks of like just devastating itchiness. If you approve an airport extension in your role in government, then you've got a lifetime of just unbearable itchiness. And I feel like that quite quickly would help, would drive much more sustainable behaviours. It could be a real game changer.

James Piper: I really, really, really like that. And so are you saying the level of impact that your decision had is how long you would then itch for?

Alex Robinson: It's both length and severity of itching? Yeah, I think it's got to be both.

James Piper: Okay, I see I haven't got a.

Alex Robinson: Full kind of framework for this yet, but if anyone's interested in helping me out with it then, then get in touch.

James Piper: I really, I think that, I think that's a great answer. So, you know, I'd be. I can already imagine myself walking home carrying like six carrier bags worth of shopping because I've forgotten my carrier bags and I really just don't want to itch for a week. So I love it. I can imagine it. I think it's great. Are you giving this superpower a name? You know, like last time we had. What did Nick call his super power?

Alex Robinson: His, he had Plastic man, which is, which is a techno DJ or techno producer for those who care about that sort of thing.

Robbie: How can people find Hubbub on social or email

So, m. we're in a.

James Piper: you've joined us for a live brainstorm with Hubbub.

Alex Robinson: Life's an itch.

James Piper: Yes, okay. Life's an itch. We got it. It's perfect. Alex, I am sure I am speaking for every listener when I say that you have added huge value to our podcast and we have really enjoyed having you here today and just the insight you've given into these amazing campaigns you're running, you've helped us create a bit more balance in our discussion and I'm sure everyone thinks that's super valuable. So if you want to contact. Alex. Alex, how can people find you or Hubbub on social or email?

Alex Robinson: Yes, so we are, ah, hubbub.org uk it's our website. and we're on all the socials. Hello. Hubbub on Instagram is a good one and you can find me. I'm mainly on LinkedIn. So is AlexJ. Robinson on LinkedIn or just come and find Hubbub on LinkedIn.

James Piper: Perfect. Thank you. And if you want to connect with the podcast, we are rubbishpodcast on all social media platforms. Or you can email us@talkinrubishpodcastmail.com. WhatsApp is available on Facebook and Instagram and, our link tree will be in our show notes, so there's loads of ways of getting hold of us. Thank you so much for joining Robbie and me today.

Alex Robinson: It's been a real pleasure.

James Piper: Thanks for having me and I will now say bye.

00:49:02