Lambeth residents to be paid for recycling

The six-month trial in Tulse Hill Estate is believed to be the first scheme in the UK to give money to residents for recycling. Lambeth Council is financing the scheme in partnership with the Greater London Authority. The project is run by Lambeth Community Recycling, which is part of Ealing-based ECT Recycling.

Speaking at the launch, Ken Livingstone said: “With the high levels of waste produced in London each year, it is vital that recycling is encouraged as a way of reducing the need for landfill sites or turning to incinerators as a solution. London has incredible potential for recycling – we have seven-and-a-half million people in 600 square miles, if we can’t make recycling work here then we haven’t got a chance anywhere else. We want London to be a recycling leader. A quarter of Londoners live in estates, if we can do this it will change the face of London.”

He added: “This is the first stage in a project that I am planning to launch elsewhere in London over the next few months and am hoping will eventually be adopted nationwide.”

Vouchers

Under the initiative, residents will be given a booklet of vouchers. They will then need to post a voucher each week in a special post box next to the recycling bins, when they place their recyclable rubbish in the bins. The slips are bar coded and will be collected when LCR empties the bins. LCR will be able to see who is using the recycling facilities and residents must take part in the scheme for at least half of the six-month period to qualify for the 10. Only the voucher for a particular week’s collection will be counted.

Andy Bond, managing director of ECT, said: “We want to raise the profile of recycling. ECT has been running the estate scheme for two years and it has been very successful, but we want to increase participation.”

He added: “There are 16 suites of bins which collect glass, paper and cans on the estate and are convenient for the residents. When we started the scheme we were told that the bins would be vandalised, but out of 170 bins in Lambeth only two have been stolen in two years. The bins are small and are not intrusive and the residents are not interested in vandalism, because they are the only people that use them.”