As communities grapple with the consequences of climate change, local environmental charities emerge as a beacon of hope.

Such grassroots organisations play an integral role in safeguarding the delicate balance of our local ecosystem, and this is particularly evident on the Isle of Man.

Microgaming has long been a supporter of local, Isle of Man-based charities through its PlayItForward programme – a partner-led corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative which prides itself on giving back to the community, and powering positive change for people, place and planet.

Recycle Collect has been a partner of PlayItForward since 2022. The local enterprise supports those across the Isle of Man who want to recycle, but for one reason or another, are unable to do so – whether that be due to their financial situation, lack of transport or mobility issues. PlayItForward has been very proud to support this enterprise.

In a PlayItForward partner spotlight, Clara Isaac, Director of Recycle Collect, walks us through the work that Recycle Collect is doing to make recycling more accessible across the Isle of Man.

Recycle Collect is a social enterprise that, as our name suggests, offers kerb side recycling collection to people across the Isle of Man. We are an all-female business, although that wasn’t by design!

We wanted to make recycling as easy and convenient as possible for everyone across the island. We’re obviously only a small place, but only those living in Douglas, the capital, are offered collections from their doorstep.

We wanted to set up a recycle collection for people on the other side of the island who we thought could benefit from this service – the elderly, those with disabilities, people who have a busy family life and even those that are unable to drive.

We collect plastic, cans, cardboard, paper, glass and cartons / tetra pak which can all be placed in the three different recycling boxes that we provide. We do ask that recyclables are empty, rinsed and flattened where possible – although this simply helps make more room for all your recycling!

At the moment, in the Isle of Man, you have to take your recycling to a collection point. We wanted to, therefore, make it much more accessible for everyone.

As with any start-up, there were challenges of course. It is exceedingly difficult to start a business, especially in the current economic climate.

The main challenge that we faced was, I’d say, getting people from the local authorities onboard with Recycle Collect and making sure they understood why people need this service. Hopefully, we’ve overcome that hurdle, and more people now realise how Recycle Collect can help them.

When we were first starting out, I think that people weren’t too receptive to the idea of recycling. They didn’t really understand why it was necessary. In a lot of cases, people don’t really think it was necessary. But two years down the line, we are beginning to see more people embrace the idea.

There has certainly been a major shift in attitudes. In 2024, it is now more important than ever to tackle the climate crisis. We have noticed that people have a much more positive, embracing attitude towards recycling. If I’m being honest, that unwillingness was quite a challenge at first, but I think we have approached that quite well.

We are working a lot with younger generations, schools and community groups to educate them on recycling. They have all been really enthusiastic; it can certainly be scary for people to take immediate action now, but we are seeing that attitude change.

I think that’s the most vital thing, we really wanted to make sure that we are supporting the Isle of Man government’s commitment to net zero carbon emissions. We thought that the best way we could achieve that was through an island-wide scheme.

We see our role as being an organisation that can help educate people on sustainable waste management. We want to lead the way in that regard and perhaps show the Isle of Man what they should be doing.

People were recycling before, but what we’ve really tried to do is really encourage the government’s commitment by providing education, encouraging people to get involved and show them the benefits that recycling can have.

We are not trying to preach to people. Recycle Collect is made up of real people, we all have a real passion and love for the Isle of Man. We are going out in the community and just trying to encourage people to do the right thing. I do believe that the Isle of Man can lead the way when it comes to initiatives such as this.

If we take the last 12 months as an example, we have helped recycle more than 180 tonnes of waste. And January 2024 was a record month for us, with 20.5 tonnes recycled in that month alone – that’s double what we collected in January of last year!

On average, we collect approximately 100kg of cans and glass per household each year – if you multiply that by the 30,000 homes on the island, that is a lot of recycling that needs to be done. In fact, glass makes up more than half of the Isle of Man’s recycling.

Since cans and glass cannot be incinerated, we ensure that these materials are recycled here on the Isle of Man. This avoids any issues for the EFW plant and helps reduce any further CO2 emissions. For context, the incineration of non-burnable materials release five times more carbon emissions in comparison to recycling, so it’s super important that we process these materials in a suitable manner.

The increased interest in Recycle Collect goes to show that more people are beginning to recycle more in their daily lives, and with time, this will just become an ingrained habit.

I think that the Isle of Man is in an incredibly unique position. We are such a small population; everyone knows everyone. But what that also means is that there is such a strong sense of community spirit.

We have spoken to several different jurisdictions to see how they run their recycling, and what we have come to realise is that everyone has different strategies in place. Bigger cities are going to work in a vastly different way to a small island such as the Isle of Man, for example. There will be plenty more commercial properties, there will be much more pressure on waste disposal services.

For a recycling scheme to be successful, you need to be able to engage with people in your community; be friendly, approachable but also listen to what people actually need and then taking action.

At Recycle Collect, we have been working hard to modernise our technology to make the entire process that bit easier for people. We have developed a web application, for example, where people can login and sign up much easier. People no longer have to call up; they can log in to the app, a few clicks and it’s all sorted. It only takes a few minutes which is great.

I think that if we embrace more modern technologies, this will make it much easier for people to engage with Recycle Collect – recycling will, as a result, become much more of an unconscious habit. Modern technologies are definitely something that I would encourage. It could even be something as simple as using social media or creating video content so people can watch educational videos as they’re scrolling through the different apps. We’ve found that this has certainly encouraged take-up.

Working with commercial businesses is very different to working with residential properties. The biggest difference is that there is a much larger volume of recycling to collect. What we tend to do with commercial customers and partners is that we will go into their offices and speak with their employees to educate them on what we do. We try to gauge people’s feelings on topics such as recycling and sustainability and explain how we fit into that.

It also helps people in the offices because when we have gone in to have a chat, we can explain the whole nature of recycling, why we do what we do, how we’re trying to preserve the earth’s natural resources and even simple things like the fact that by August each year, we have used more natural resources than the Earth has had time to create.

When people realise the sheer scale of our resource consumption, they are much more inclined to apply these practices to their own life and work. One figure that has always stood out to me is that by August each year, we have used more resources than the natural world has had time to create. That’s crazy! It just goes to show that it is now more important than ever to protect and preserve what we can, not only for ourselves but for future generations too.

It is definitely making businesses more conscious about their own recycling and how they can reduce waste too.

Our partnership with PlayItForward has played a huge part in our journey. When we first set up Recycle Collect, I had gone in to tell our story, our journey and where we were planning to take the company. But what we were trying to work out was that even though this scheme is fantastic, we were unable to reach people who really wanted to recycle but couldn’t afford to pay for kerb side collection. I was, and still am, incredibly grateful to PlayItForward for their sponsorship of 10 of our customers who were really keen to recycle, they were really busy but struggled to afford it. That sponsorship has continued for two years now, and it’s been really well received. There is no other initiative like that, they are really giving back to the community.

Very recently, I have been in to speak with the PlayItForward team to discuss our home collections. We have also launched a kerb side recycling scheme for PlayItForward’s partners, and we have had a huge uptick in the number of people using Recycle Collect, all funded by PlayItForward, and that has been great. It is wonderful to see their employees consider their waste management. Having the support of commercial organisations will make it more likely for people to add recycling to their daily lives; I hope that this will eventually become a government-backed initiative.

I think it is hugely important for organisations to partner with Recycle Collect to help promote ESG standards. This has really helped us to grow. At a time when the economic climate is really difficult, it’s now more important than ever for people to support local businesses. At Recycle Collect, we are employing local people and trying to improve the sustainability of the island.

What that does for organisations is it demonstrates that community piece; they are really taking it seriously. Companies are not just encouraging their employees to recycle – which is great by itself – but they are also raising awareness of the climate crisis.

It is all about working alongside local people to shout loud, to show that we want to see change and that we need to be taking action now. That is why organisations should work with Recycle Collect. We have solidified relationships with industry partners which has helped us to spread our message even further and has definitely allowed us to get our foot in the door to act.

I think the end goal for Recycle Collect is to have an island-wide kerb side recycling collection that helps everyone on the Isle of Man. What we would really like to see is the movement into vehicles that are much more environmentally considered.

At the moment, the Isle of Man is looking at renewable energy generation. When that does come about, I hope that we will see more companies begin to take a much more environmentally-conscious approach – whether that’s using electric vehicles or reducing energy consumption. I believe that people should adopt policies which put people before profit.

I am really hopeful for the future. I would love to see Recycle Collect continue to grow, take on more employees, collect for more people. If we continue at the rate we are going, I think we are in good stead for the future.

PlayItForward is constantly looking for new green projects to support across the island. When we first met with Clara and the Recycle Collect team, we were keen to find out just how we could help. What was clear was that we were very ‘likeminded’; as part of our ISO 14001:2015, Microgaming has been committed to supporting local ecological projects, and Recycle Collect had just the right solution. The team matched our energy, they aligned with our values and they are doing great work within the local community.

Through our collaboration, PlayItForward has provided Recycle Collect with an annual comfort fund to support those who are unable to recycle their waste. Earlier this year, we also launched a new project in collaboration with Recycle Collect, which is being trialled with PlayItForward partners. We are offering them the opportunity to use the service to recycle their waste at home. It’s been a huge success so far, with more than a third of partners living outside of Douglas taking up the offer.

The importance of recycling has never been clearer. While global efforts to combat pollution are crucial, it’s at the local level where real change begins to take root. PlayItForward is very proud to work with organisations such as Recycle Collect, and we hope that other businesses will also consider partnering with such eco projects.