Reaffirming the value of plastic with “Are You R”

A website in seven languages and a community of tens of thousands of users: a dissemination and communication project run online.

Is Plastic an absolute evil? This seems to be the idea that has driven environmental communication campaigns for years.

It’s an idea revolutionized by the breakout of the pandemic, when plastic was found to be indispensable: for protecting food, for reducing waste, for guaranteeing the integrity of medicine, for guaranteeing people’s safety in the health care context and in daily life. One aspect is missing, however, from this new awareness: the high recyclability of plastic, which guarantees a much greater circularity than many other materials considered greener. These are reflections that the European “Are you R” project aims to disseminate among consumers, putting emphasis on the importance of the recycling of plastic, which does not pollute as a material in itself but only if it is not properly disposed and directed to the many recycling opportunities on offer.

Social media for the environment

According to “Are You R”, which dialogues with the public through the multilingual website and a Facebook community of almost 40,000 followers in Italy alone, plastic is everywhere around us and has taken on, over time, a primary importance to the extent of being difficult to replace, if only because it simplifies and often protects our everyday lifestyle.

“Are you R” is the brainchild of a number of Italian companies in the sector and of Plastic Recyclers Europe (PRE) which, through a series of contents dedicated to technology, the economy and lifestyle, seek to recount the evolution of plastic materials and their reuse. ùThe media channels have, therefore, been indispensable for disseminating awareness of the value of this consumer material, strengthening the idea that plastic waste, if correctly disposed of and recycled, can be an important resource for making a huge quantity of products, limiting the use of primary resources, energy and incentivizing the circular economy.

Erica Canaia, one of the founders of the project and Commercial Sales Director of Fimic srl, the company specialized in the development of mechanical technology for the plastic recycling industry, is convinced.

«The idea came from the need to create a network of producers able to explain the value of the material going beyond the incorrect messages of these years, which have criminalized plastic» Canaia begins. «We have, therefore, created a website where responses in 7 different languages are provided and a community which overall arrives at 70,000 people distributed across various international profiles. The objective is that the sector actively participates in a dissemination project that supports the system along the entire supply chain, from production to recycling, enhancing the value of sector communication which promotes plastic as a circular, recyclable and sustainable material, obviously if correctly disposed».