Ealing has become the latest council to offer recycling incentives to residents, following the launch of a rewards scheme in the West London borough today (April 1).
Greenredeem, which last year absorbed Recyclebank UK, officially rolled out its residents rewards programme at Pitzhanger Manor-House yesterday, which sees households awarded 10 points each week for recycling.
Residents in Ealing will be able to exchange their points for vouchers to spend in local and national retail outlets, and leisure facilities. Other advantages include 100 points for registering online, and a bonus based on the weight of recyclable material collected across the community.
The project is the first time the Grundon-owned firm has not partnered with an authority signed to a contract with Veolia Environmental Services, and will work with local retailers on alongside its national partnerships with Marks & Spencer and Rush.
Trust
Rather than the individual chipping of bins for waste which has been seen in Windsor & Maidenhead, the Ealing scheme will be built on trust, with points awarded based on the overall tonnage weighed after each collection round in different districts.
Residents can also login online to make pledges, take quizzes, and refer friends in order to earn points.
Speaking at the event yesterday, Rob Crumbie, communications director of Greenredeem, said: This is our fifth local authority partner in the UK and our largest as well. We are very proud to be playing a part in helping Ealing reach its 50% target by 2020.
It is important to understand that different people are motivated by different things, so today I am excited to announce we have eight community projects which residents can donate their points to. We like to think that we can bring a number of benefits to our partners. In addition to that Ealing residents will be able to choose their rewards.
Funding
Ealing council has allocated 720,601 for the rewards scheme, as part of the 1.1 million fund awarded by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) to help achieve its overall recycling target from 41% to 50% by 2020.
DCLG which provided the funding on the basis that Ealing pledged to keep its weekly collections – views incentive schemes as an alternative to reducing residual waste collections in order to boost recycling, and recently touted them as the future of recycling in its bin collection guidance.
But speaking to letsrecycle.com at the launch event, Labour leader of Ealing Council Julian Bell said the authority would have kept the weekly collections regardless of what Eric Pickles was saying, and pledged to achieve a 50% recycling rate in Ealing by 2018 if Labour is re-elected to the council in May.
He said: I am excited because I think protecting the environment is important. This is a fantastic way for us as a council to reduce the amount of money we are spending on sending our waste to landfill, which is far more expensive than sending waste for recycling.
He added: Not many councils have done this, we are in the front ranks and our businesses are both environmental and community-minded.
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