WRAP’s Recycle Now and Among Equals have teamed up on new campaign creative, part of Recycle Now’s 2026 Recycle Week.

The campaign tackles the question ‘’is recycling worth it?’’ head on, urging people to rescue their recyclables from ending up in the rubbish by showing what these items could become.

Running across TV, organic and paid social media, PR, out-of-home, and partner engagement, the stories of a host of loveable characters are told through engaging animations and static graphics.

The cast of characters features many familiar items from around the home, all of whom can be recycled but are often binned such as Shampers the shampoo bottle, Rolly the toilet roll, Deo the aerosol can and new for 2026, Neil the banana peel.

Each character’s story shows their hopes and dreams for the future and outlines the benefit in keeping valuable materials in circulation. Rolly the toilet roll, voiced by social media sensation ‘’Big John’’ Fisher, is brought to life from the bathroom floor, telling of his hopes to become a tissue box or a notebook and urging audiences to pop him in the recycling.

In Recycle Now’s TV ad, broadcast on Sky as part of Sky Media’s multi-award winning Sky Zero Footprint Fund, Rolly’s story plays out in a dramatic news interview, finally given a moment in the spotlight.

This year’s campaign introduces food waste recycling to the mix – something that’s new for many people in England this year with the introduction of Simpler Recycling reforms and widespread service changes. Neil the peel shows the value of recycling your food waste by turning into green energy, and fertiliser.

Lucy Graham, Recycle Now marketing manager, said: “We’ve built on our existing creative platform, adding brand new characters and developing the story of each item with real facts about what happens when these get recycled. We know that people are struggling to believe that recycling is worthwhile and by giving these commonly binned recyclables an engaging story, we’re showing people why it’s important to recycle. This campaign celebrates the power of recycling to save energy, and keep valuable materials in circulation.”

Meg Jordan, creative strategy director, Among Equals, said “Recycling works harder when people believe it’s worth doing and right now, trust is slipping. WRAP’s own data shows the number of people who find their recycling worthwhile has dropped from 81% in 2021 to 69% today (WRAP, Recycle Week 2026). So this year, instead of more rules, we gave people proof. We built real afterlives for Rolly, Shampers, Deo – now Neil the Peel – based on what these recyclables actually go on to become in their next lives. Behavioural science tells us people act on emotion before information, so we didn’t just simplify the facts, we told real stories about why recycling very much remains worth the effort.”

How worthwhile is recycling?

• Recycling one deodorant can could save enough energy to charge a phone over FORTY times.
• 35.8 million plastic bottles are used every day – recycling one shampoo or conditioner bottle saves enough energy to power a hairdryer for 5 minutes.
• Recycling a plastic shampoo or conditioner bottle into another bottle uses 12% of the energy needed to make one from scratch.
• Recycling 8 banana peels generates enough energy to boil a kettle.
• Recycle Now welcomes involvement in the campaign and has produced a FREE toolkit featuring the key campaign assets.

Partners are invited to use the assets across internal and external channels to support the campaign, using the hashtag #RecycleNow2026. Email RecycleNow@WRAP.ngo for more information.