Residents of Windsor and Maidenhead will be rewarded for recycling under a ground-breaking new pilot scheme pioneered in the US.
The Tory-run council will be the first in the UK to pilot the RecycleBank scheme, which has significantly increased recycling across America.
London mayor, Boris Johnson, is also in discussions with the US company, after pledging to introduce the system in his pre-election manifesto.
Under the scheme, a wheelie bin fitted with a radio frequency identifier (RFID) will be assigned to households, and will be read and weighed on emptying. Data will be stored and a corresponding number of points, calculated from the weight of recycled material collected, will be allocated to the specific household.
Households are set up with a rewards account, and points can then be redeemed at various local and national businesses for goods or services, or as a donation to participating charities.
The scheme restricts each household to a maximum redeemable weight/points in order to deter abuse of the system. Cllr Liam Maxwell, lead member for sustainability, said the scheme would ‘reduce our landfill tax liability and give residents rewards that they can use in local shops and businesses – a great way to help the local economy’.
The pilot will be delivered by the council’s waste contractor Veolia, and trialled in May, with up to 4,000 homes for the collection of green waste. A spokesperson for the mayor of London said: ‘We are very enthusiastic about the introduction of RecycleBank – with voluntary participation by householders – but it would need to be implemented by and with the full support of borough councils.’
Dirk Hazell, chief executive of the Environmental Services Association, said: ‘Pilots like these are invaluable to get Britain to the next stage of building a recycling society. It is good to see ongoing progress being made on recycling at a time when some commentators have distracted attention from the simple fact that our industry is recycling materials collected for recycling, despite volatility in global markets.’
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