Being resourceful for Global Renewables

For Global Renewables Lancashire, household waste isn’t rubbish; it’s a valuable resource to be recovered, recycled and reused. And as the biggest waste treatment plant in the country, it makes an important contribution to improving the environment.

So when they invited Ainsworth & Parkinson to pitch for the opportunity to educate schoolchildren about the significance of waste materials, the agency was keen to be involved. The pitch was rolled out in three stages, meaning A&P were competing with other agencies every step of the way.

The first stage was to produce what were called ‘interpretation walls’. The brief required participants to come up with a way to make the treatment process understandable, engaging and meaningful to children who visit the plant. It wanted to bring home to them a couple of key facts: one, the sheer complexity of processing waste that hasn’t already been separated into different bins at source by householders; and two, the fact that virtually all waste can be usefully turned into something else – whether it’s jewellery, clothing (such as fleeces), or other products.

 

 

As such, there are two vast facilities – one for unsorted waste, the other for pre-sorted waste. A&P’s idea was to create two characters: robots who digest and process waste in much the same way as the human digestive system does. With equivalent mouth, stomach, and filtering areas, they even had gas-producing ‘bottoms’, which – of course – children love. Illustrations depicting various aspects of the robots’ ‘digestion’ process were created to be hung on a giant walkway that forms part of the plant tour, enabling children to relate to the operation in a way that makes sense to them.

The immediacy and appeal of the concept won A&P this stage.

The second stage comprised the designing of a mural of Lancashire to show what produce is grown in the area and so raise awareness of food provenance – to demonstrate that it doesn’t simply appear out of nowhere on the supermarket shelves.

 

 

Again, A&P were successful because their design proved more adaptable than those of others who also pitched. They were able to incorporate all the educational, informative and representational elements using a scaleable illustration created on a mac, and won on cost as well as quality.

The third and final stage of the pitch was to provide children with activity materials that they could play with and which would educate them at the same time. The agency produced a suite of highly entertaining games that they could physically act out, and once more they were chosen to take this forward.

It was a fantastically rewarding project to be involved in, and as A&P themselves now say: "There’s no such thing as waste - just resources or materials that haven't found the right home yet!"