PEOPLE in Glasgow are being urged to recycle the 300 million metal items they use every year.

A campaign has been launched by Glasgow City Council, calling on households to recycle more food tins, drink cans and empty aerosols.

The campaign has received backing from Councillor Alistair Watson, who officially launched the programme at George Square.

Leaflets on how people can boost the area's recycling rates also started arriving in homes across the city this week.

The metal packaging manufacturing industry, recyclers and companies that package their products in metal, have teamed up with the council to launch the Make Your Metals Matter recycling campaign.

It follows research that shows people are not always aware their used metal packaging will be transformed into new, valuable everyday items when collected for recycling.

Used metal packaging can be recycled endlessly into new products at a far lower cost to industry and the environment than making them from raw materials.

The campaign aims to help people understand what can be recycled and explain what happens to the metals collected.

Councillor Watson said: "We are calling on residents to make their metals matter and help increase the city's recycling performance.

"We are committed to reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill and we hope the campaign will encourage residents to recycle more of the metal packaging they use every day.

"Every can recycled saves enough energy to run a television for three hours, so a small action such as putting your empty bean tin in the recycling can make a big difference."

If all the metal pack­aging used in Glasgow each year was collected for recycling it would save about 14,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, the equivalent to taking 3000 cars off local streets for a year.

Aiming to spread this message throughout the city, the communications campaign will see more than 120,000 leaflets sent to homes, as well as messages put on recycling vehicles and mobile outdoor advertising.

Diana Caldwell, of project managers Alupro, said: "We have done extensive research into recycling habits and found it is often the uncertainty of how to recycle, and what happens to the items recycled, that prevents people from doing more.

"Campaigns like this allow us to take the recycling message into homes and highlight exactly how they can help just by recycling more of the pack­aging they use every day."

stef.lach@ heraldandtimes.co.uk