‘Hey Punk sort your Junk gets the message across

An end of term campaign to reduce waste problems in Bangor has been carried out by Bangor University, Bangor Students’ Union, Gwynedd Council and North Wales Police.

This is the second year of the ‘Hey Punk – Sort Your Junk’ campaign, where partners worked together to tackle the annual problem of end of term waste of rubbish spilling on to the street and other public places.

The tongue-in-cheek awareness raising campaign was developed and led by the University’s Marketing Society with students Emma-Louise Jones, Ffion Haf Jones and Yueun Chung leading the team. The campaign aimed to highlight the contrast between the stereotype of the messy student and the current geek chic fashion championed by television shows aimed at young people.

A total of eight tonnes of waste was collected by Gwynedd Council’s Waste Collection Teams from areas predominantly occupied by students.

The ‘Big Give’ was also part of the campaign. This provided students with an opportunity do donate any unwanted items such as clothes, books and household items to charity. This year project leaders Ilka Johanna Illers, Daryl Hughes and Emma Robertson extended their campaign to include collection points in key local areas with a large student population. The project succeeded in re-directing over a tonne of items from landfill, helping The Red Cross, local homeless shelters and women’s charities in the process.

Sharyn Williams, from Bangor Students’ Union said:

“’Hey Punk’ has been a fantastic way to end another year of our students’ work in the community, with this year’s campaign building on the last by giving the University’s marketing students the opportunity to come up with a concept and develop the campaign giving students another way to lead their own involvement within the community. This shows that our students are enthusiastic about getting actively involved in all aspects of keeping Bangor a beautiful and friendly place to live.”

Gwenan Hine, Assistant Registrar at Bangor University, who leads the Bangor Pride University and Student’s Group, added: “It's great to see the University, the student community and Gwynedd Council building on the success of last year's campaign and working together again to keep Bangor's streets clean and tidy.”

Peter Simpson, Gwynedd Council’s Streetscene Manager said: “For the second year running, Bangor Pride has demonstrated how close partnership working can help to make a difference in the City.

“The students should be commended for running their own end of term waste campaign, which in combination with Gwynedd Council’s additional Bank Holiday waste collections, left streets in a very clean and tidy condition.

“We will continue to build on this success in future years and will also engage with private landlords, who have an equally important role in managing their tenants’ waste.”

Councillor John Wynn Jones, Bangor Pride Chairman, said: “On behalf of Bangor Pride I can only thank all that have been involved in this years ‘Hey Punk’ campaign. This second end of year campaign has again demonstrated that if we all pull together the outcome is much better making everybody’s life in Bangor a lot more pleasant.”

The Bangor Pride University and Students sub group have also secured funding for projects that aim to enhance the local environmental quality of the city. These projects include the ‘Students in Bloom campaign’ as well as a campaign to encourage and promote recycling within the student population.

These campaigns have been made possible by funding from the Welsh Government’s Tidy Towns environmental improvement programme and Gwynedd Council is working in partnership with Keep Wales Tidy. For more information about Gwynedd Council’s Tidy Towns scheme, contact TidyTowns@gwynedd.gov.uk or telephone 01766 771000
 A poster is available from press@bangor.ac.uk

Publication date: 15 June 2011