Wizard of Oz Promotional Video
Text Accompaniment

This is the Text version of Tameside Council's Recycling Promotional Video. 

Tameside Council are always at the forefront of recycling and waste collection. 

The council plays a very important role in ensuring the recycling message reaches the public. In an age when recycling our waste is essential the role of marketing and publicity is critical.

Each year the council develops a unique way of getting that message across. From a recycled dinosaur, to a rag and bone man, a 100 year old refuse car, to the idea of 2008, which was based on the well known story, the Wizard of Oz.

This short film shows the development of that idea. From the initial concept, through the design and development stage, to the first outing at the Institute of Waste Management Conference in Torbay.

Each year the theme is developed in conjunction with the leader of the council, and is used to support the work of the council in reducing our waste mountains and help get people recycling.

So the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz became the springboard to the idea. Made entirely of recycled tin cans, the tin man would develop the idea of having the heart to recycle for Tameside. All it needed was for the other characters to be developed.

Design consultancy “Easy Tiger”, who the council had previously worked with, was approached and the team developed a number of characters. These were the Tin Man, the Lion, the Scarecrow, Dorothy and the Wicked Witch.

A series of design meetings helped develop the characters before their delivery to the Ash Road Environment Centre. Each character has been painstakingly created out of different recyclable materials.

Kyle Barnes (of Tameside MBC): “So that’s just like one glass bottle that’s been split in half and then moulded together on the face”
Easy Tiger Consultant: “Yes”

Easy Tiger Consultant: “That’s the jowly-ness that kind of defines him”

Kyle Barnes: “How did you do the head?”
Easy Tiger Consultant: “It’s laminated bits of cardboard and then carved through”.

Easy Tiger Consultant: “All her sort of body is made out of more plastic bottles, and so you won’t actually see any of the timberwork”.

From there the characters had their inaugural outing at the Annual Waste Conference, attended by the leader of the council. A number of the characters talk and give recycling messages, plus capturing the attention of any observer.

Tin Man: “Have a heart, play your part”
Scarecrow: “I’ve got the brains to use my blue bin”
Lion: “Recycle for Tameside”

The Wicked Witch of the West, was turned into the Wicked Witch of the Waste, with a message that dumping your rubbish in a black bin is just not good.

The other characters all support the council’s various recycling schemes, and have the heart, the brains and the courage to recycle for Tameside.

There is a serious side to this, as outlined by Councillor Roy Oldham, Executive Leader of the Council.

Councillor Roy Oldham: “What’s the purpose of dumping materials which are pure chemical, why not just return that material back into something useful rather than just putting it in a hole in the ground.”

Councillor Roy Oldham: “Each year we arrive here with a different concept, so we sat down a few months ago and thought: Wizard of Oz. We’ve got these characters in Straw Man, Tin Man, these characters are made up of that waste material, so let’s use them to tell people to recycle.”

The characters are now being used in an ongoing campaign, to promote waste minimisation and recycling in Tameside.

So have the heart, have the courage and have the brains to recycle.