Council offers rewards for recycling in pilot scheme
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Recycling incentives in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead
Here’s a good move towards increased recycling and reduced landfill. I’m not too sure about the incentive being a voucher to buy new stuff LOL! but it definitely gets our support here at Chez Green. It should encourage residents to recycle more, even those who do not class themselves as ‘green’ or eco activists.
What do you think?
Find the original story by Luke Walsh at edie.net
Residents in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead are to be rewarded for their recycling through a pilot scheme starting today (1 June).
The council says the scheme works on the principle of ‘the more you recycle, the more you earn’ and gives residents the opportunity to sign up for RecycleBank reward points based on the amount they recycle and divert from landfill.
The points can then be used to buy goods and services from shops, like Marks and Spencer, or can be donated to charity.
The scheme, based on the successful rewards programme run by RecycleBank in the USA where it serves one million residents, will be piloted initially for three months with the council’s green waste collection before being expanded to mixed recycling.
Liam Maxwell, councillor for sustainability, said: “The pilot gives us an excellent opportunity to test a system that rewards residents and reduces the amount of waste sent to landfill.
“It also supports our local economy by promoting borough shops and businesses alongside big international names like M&S and Legoland.”
Some 55 national and local shops and businesses have signed up to be reward partners, including the Magnet and Windsor Leisure Centres, Subway, Pizza Hut, The Tree Council’s Tree Warden Scheme, Strok’s restaurant and Bar and Wren’s Club.
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Haven’t read the article yet but my first thought is why not make the vouchers redeemable against eco-friendly products which in turn will help the bigger picture in the long run.
Mrs Green,
Rewarding good recycling is the best way to encourage the uncommitted. This should be done everywhere as soon as practicable and will transform the situation. None of my 3 terrace neighbours recycle but I am sure they would be looking for good advice from me, as to how to maximise their vouchers, in quick time.
The rewards for Zero Waste enthusiasts may be less since Reduce/Reuse/Refill significantly lower the volume of recyclate. There is no way I would change to get vouchers since recycling itself is imperfect.
We obviously lead the field and any time we comment at WRAP for example they are put out by our better performance. Hopefully, they learn from our experiences and plan ahead.
@maisie dalziel: that’s what I would like to see too, Maisie. I guess they did it to appeal to the masses …