You are here:

Local authority waste management: Encouraging people to recycle

Defra carried out a pilot study of local authority household reward only schemes in England, backed by £3.1m in 2005/06. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a comprehensive range of reward schemes in encouraging householders to reduce, recycle and compost their waste.

The pilot was launched by the Environment Minister in March 2005. Defra then wrote to local authorities in England to encourage them to get involved and apply for support.

Please note that these pilot schemes – which focused only on rewarding households – are different from the incentives schemes Government wishes to provide local authorities in England with powers to pilot, through the Climate Change Bill. Under the latter proposals, householders throwing away the least residual (‘black bag’) waste will receive a reward but those throwing away most could also, in some pilots, be required to pay for doing so. Find out more on the waste incentives powers, which are contained in the Climate Change Bill.

Final reward only schemes report

Appendix 1: Individual pilot summaries

North east
North west
Yorkshire and Humberside
East Midlands
West Midlands
East
London
South east
South west

Based on the results from this research we conclude that incentives can be a useful tool to authorities that wish to enhance the performance of their waste collection service.

However, they have a number of considerations to take into account when choosing an incentive to trial.

There is, unfortunately, no "one size fits all" ideal solution. The authority must first and foremost consider the barriers to recycling that it needs to address, such as: lack of participation; excessive contamination; infrequency of collection service; number or size of collection receptacles.

The best solution may then actually be to introduce a service or infrastructure change, for example, collect more material types rather than an offering an incentive alone.

Incentives should be seen as a means of maximising the efficiency of waste management infrastructure and service provision that is already available to householders.

Background: Pilot study of local authority household incentives for waste management

By the deadline on 1 July 05 Defra received 94 applications for support under the household incentive pilot schemes, many from partnerships of authorities. There was a good spread of bids from all regions and applications covered a range of minimisation, recycling and composting schemes, with rewards going to both individuals and the wider community.

The bids were assessed by a six-strong panel of Defra officials; further challenge meetings were held with other senior officials to ensure that the process had been fair. We also took into account recommendations of the Government Offices and consulted the Waste and Resource Action Programme (WRAP) to ensure there would be no overlap with existing schemes.

In total from the 94 applications received, 51 proposals were selected, totalling around £3.5m, although due to unforeseen circumstances 3 subsequently dropped out. £5m was the maximum budget available for the pilots - it was not possible to assess in advance exactly how much interest there would be in the pilot, nor how many schemes of different types would need to be funded to deliver robust results.

Defra believes that the pilots chosen will ensure a good spread of activity without duplication of effort for the purpose of the study. The pilots look at a range of projects in different geographical regions and types of authority, in many cases local authorities have co-ordinated proposals at regional level.

The pilots that were selected proposed testing a variety of different types of incentive, ranging from community league tables with environmental enhancements for the winning area, to pledges leading to equipment for schools, although the most popular were lottery-style prize draws. A number of the proposed pilots used waste weighing technology to measure accurately the impact of incentives.

The proposals tested the value of incentives on a whole range of different target populations, ranging from villages to high-rise estates, and from the highest performers (where the focus is on waste minimisation and on reducing contamination in recycling collections) to the lowest (where the focus is on encouraging more people to recycle).

In total 100 districts and boroughs are involved in the pilots, as well as community groups and private sector organisations.

Consultants AEA Technology worked with the local authorities to ensure there was a robust framework in place for monitoring and evaluating the schemes, to test the effectiveness of the incentives.

Most pilots were completed at the end of April 2006 and a detailed report was produced by AEAT. This report brings together a guide on the success of the schemes and identify lessons learnt and best practice.

Page last modified: 26 June 2008
Page published: 5 February 2003