Encouraging householders to recycle
Pilot study of local authority household reward only schemes for waste management
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.
- Find out more in the background to the study.
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
- Evaluation of the Household Waste Incentives Pilot Scheme (PDF 300 KB) (August 2006)
Appendix 1: Individual pilot summaries
North east
- North east (PDF 110 KB)
North west
- North west (PDF 200 KB)
Yorkshire and Humberside
- Yorkshire and Humberside (PDF 900 KB)
East Midlands
- East Midlands (PDF 70 KB)
West Midlands
- West Midlands (PDF 340 KB)
East
- East (PDF 350 KB)
London
- London (PDF 350 KB)
South east
- South east (PDF 230 KB)
South west
- South west (PDF 210 KB)
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.
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Page last modified:
26 June 2008
Page published: 5 February 2003