Across Australia, many households were unintentionally placing non-recyclable items in kerbside bins — or “wish-cycling” — under the assumption that everything would be sorted correctly at the other end. This behaviour was causing high contamination rates, making it harder to recover valuable materials, reducing the commercial value of recycling, and diverting otherwise recyclable waste to landfill.

CALD communities were identified as needing specialised, culturally relevant communication, as many were at different points on their waste-management journey. Embrace Society designed and delivered a comprehensive, two-phase behaviour-change campaign to:

• Build confidence in Australia’s waste and recycling systems, and
• Reduce the volume of household waste going to landfill.

The campaign integrated mass media, PR, and community-level engagement to ensure messages were clear, consistent, and culturally resonant.

Key components included:

• Advertising: Television subtitled in seven languages; radio in seven languages; digital video subtitled in five languages; META social video in five languages; and WeChat/Weibo static social ads.
• Information materials: Written explainers and social tiles translated into seven languages.
  Stakeholder engagement and community outreach: Local partnerships and grassroots distribution through trusted networks.
  Public Relations: Community radio partnerships, podcast series, and earned media coverage.
• Social media: Paid and organic posts amplified through multicultural influencers and networks.

Primary target group:
Australians aged 16+ living in metropolitan or regional areas with access to kerbside recycling or within 30 minutes of a drop-off centre.

Languages:

• Advertising: Arabic, Cantonese, Greek, Italian, Korean, Mandarin, Vietnamese
• PR: Arabic, Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified, Greek, Italian, Korean, Vietnamese, English

The campaign’s strength lay in its authenticity, accessibility, and reach.

Through a combination of traditional and social media, supported by extensive community and stakeholder engagement, the program achieved deep penetration across diverse CALD audiences.

Outcomes included:

• Above-benchmark engagement metrics across both media and outreach activities.
• Community organisations welcomed the campaign materials and actively shared them with members, demonstrating strong cultural resonance.
• The creative strategy and partnerships modelled best-practice behaviour-change communication for multicultural audiences.

By positioning recycling as a shared national responsibility — explained in simple, culturally aware language — this campaign turned confusion into clarity and hesitation into confident recycling behaviour.