Residents of Bexley, south London, have responded positively to the recycling incentive scheme that’s running locally, according to canvassers who’ve talked to them on doorsteps.
The London Green Points – Bexley scheme is designed to reward households for doing more recycling and cutting waste that goes to landfill. Over 15,000 households living in the borough can earn discounts and offers from local retail partners, and receive Green Points if there is an increase in recycling to buy eco-friendly products or give to charity.
Chris Simpson, a law student living in Bexley, was one of the Jump (Green Rewards) team visiting local residents this summer, urging them to sign up.
“It went really well,” he recalls. “It was probably the easiest sales job I’ve ever done. That’s because there are no downsides to the scheme. People really take to the fact that they can use their cards to get discounts in their local area. Plus I think just having a Green Points card in their wallet makes people more aware of green issues.”
The job of the Jump (Green Rewards) team was to encourage local residents to sign up to the scheme and answer any questions that people had. Simpson was among the most successful of the team and over five weeks, he helped around 500 residents to join.
Simpson, a Bexley resident for four years, believes that residents are pleased to recycle. “The majority of people we spoke to recognise that they can do more. Some feel that they don’t have access to recycling bins close enough to where they live. People are happy to recycle, but until now they’ve lacked a real incentive. This scheme gives them that final extra kick on.”
Flats are being targeted over houses during this initial phase of the Bexley scheme. Estates have colour-coded recycling bins near entrances or in bin stores. Each flat has a reusable recycling bag that they can use to store recyclable waste at home, before residents take them to the recycle points and separate them into correct bins.
The Green Points that each household gets is based on the total recycling and total waste saved in Bexley as a whole, so the more that local people recycle, the more they and their neighbours earn.
There are over 1,500 landfill sites in the UK, and in 2001 these sites produced a quarter of the UK’s methane emissions.
Government policy has swung behind the ‘carrots not sticks’ approach to recycling that the Bexley scheme represents. A 2006 report for Defra concluded that six out of 10 incentive schemes increased the amount of recyclable material collected.
