Recycling Rewards Set forRoyal Borough-wide Roll Out

Recycling will be be easier and more rewarding for every local household when the council’s ground-breaking RecycleBank scheme is rolled out across the borough to more than 60,000 households from July 2010.  CLICK HERE to see a street by street list of when you can expect your blue bin.

This good news follows the hugely successful pilot started last year when more than 6,500 households were invited to help test the scheme, earning RecycleBank Reward Points for their recycling efforts.
Since then
•    70% of eligible households have activated their rewards accounts
•    more than five million RecycleBank Points have been earned for discounts and offers at 106 shops, leisure centres, businesses, attractions and cafés/restaurants; many residents have given their Points to charity and schools
•    recycling tonnages in the participating households have increased by at least 35%.

The result of the success is that cabinet has now given the go-ahead for a borough-wide roll out, descibed by Cllr Liam Maxwell, lead member for policy and performance, as a major breakthrough for encouraging people to change their recycling habits.

He said: “We have been absolutely delighted by the response so far. The results have exceeded even our most optimistic expectations and I would like to thank residents for helping the Royal Borough pioneer this exciting way of reducing the amount of waste we send to landfill.
“We have demonstrated that incentives help change behaviour. Incentives – not penalties – are the way forward and councils in other parts of the country are following the Royal Borough’s lead as they look for ways of helping residents change the way they dispose of waste and increase their recycling.
“The beauty of the rewards programme is that everyone wins – residents, local businesses, the council and, importantly, our environment.”

The concept is simple – the more people recycle the more rewards they earn. Special blue wheelie bins will be delivered to every home and, as residents in the pilot scheme have proved, recycling will get a lot simpler as cans, paper, glass and plastic bottles will go into the one bin – no more separating them into different boxes.

Run in partnership with RecycleBank which has pioneered rewards for recycling across the USA and waste contractors Veolia Environmental Services, the rewards programme gives households the potential of earning up to £135 a year in discounts and special offers. The leading sponsor and reward partner is Marks and Spencer but 78% of the still growing list of participating businesses are local to the area – giving the borough’s economy a welcome boost.
The scheme works by fitting electronic tags to the bins with the weight recorded by equipment in the collection vehicles. Residents’ privacy is protected by the fact that no personal data is held in the system and they themselves choose if they want to take part by activating their secure RecycleBank account, either online or by phone.

Cllr Maxwell added: “The pilot scheme showed that the technology and equipment are very reliable. The significant increase in recycling is proof that the scheme not only works but is popular with residents – and with the roll out taking place in phases from July, by this time next year all local households will be able to join in.”
Last week the recycling reward scheme gained national recognition, being highly commended in the Sustainable Environment category of the LGC Awards. These awards reward the very best in local government and recognise the excellent services councils deliver to their local communities.