Community Recycling is Rewarding

Community solution enables all residents to benefit from recycling rewards
In another UK first, the Royal Borough is to introduce a pioneering community solution that will make recycling rewards available to a further 13,000 local households – those who don’t have access to a wheelie bin – enabling all residents to benefit from the pioneering scheme by January.

When the scheme was launched in June, the council pledged that rewards for recycling would be made available to all households in the borough. Since then work has been going on with partners RecycleBank and Veolia Environmental Services to find a practical way of ensuring all homes have the opportunity to take part.

The solution enables RecycleBank rewards to be made available to residents who don’t have their own individual wheelie bin – including those who live in flats with communal recycling facilities, narrow streets which are inaccessible to refuse collection vehicles or older properties where there is not enough bin storage space. Once households have activated their accounts, residents will tell RecycleBank each week that they have recycled either online, by phone or through apps on their Blackberry or iPhone.

Points will then be allocated to participating residents based on an equal share of the total amount recycled within the area. Points will be deposited into members’ accounts and then can be redeemed for goods and services provided by more than 100 national and local businesses.

Cllr Liam Maxwell, lead member for sustainability, said: “Rewards for recycling is proving a huge success with our residents. The council is determined that everyone should have access to the rewards scheme if they wish, irrespective of the technical difficulties posed by flats and by the many narrow streets of our historic towns.

“This new community option gives residents the power to participate by reporting their own recycling efforts and being rewarded with points that can be redeemed for special-offer and discount vouchers in the normal way. The scheme fits perfectly with the ideals of the Big Society, giving people more control over the services they use and, in this instance, benefitting from valuable rewards for recycling.”

Following cabinet’s agreement to the community solution on Thursday 30 September, the details of how the scheme will operate, including the final formula for awarding points to individual households, are being finalised. All affected households will get letters explaining how they can participate and earn valuable reward points. The letters will include information about when households can expect the scheme to start in their area. Details will also be posted on the council’s website www.rbwm.gov.uk

Every household in the Royal Borough will be able to take part in the RecycleBank scheme by the end of January 2011 – meeting the council’s target for full participation.

Early indications of the full borough roll out show that there has been an increase in the region of 40% in the average weight of dry recycling material collected from households that have activated a rewards account, compared to the average recycling weight collected per household using the previous two-box system. So far, 61% of households which have received a blue bin are taking part in the RecycleBank scheme.