Lottery scheme would boost household waste recycling

In a report published today by the government-funded thinktank NCC, Sixteen Pain-Free Ways to Help Save the Planet, the NCC suggested a nationally-organised lottery would encourage residents who have previously shunned recycling to think more about their waste.

”In Norway a recycling lottery has more than doubled the number of people recycling drink cartons.“
– Ed Mayo, NCC
The idea is based on a scheme currently running in Norway which was brought in to deal with Tetra Pak cartons, which are seen as difficult to recycle.

Ed Mayo, chief executive of the NCC, said: “In Norway a recycling lottery has more than doubled the number of people recycling drink cartons from just 30% to 70% of the population. All you do is squash your carton, write your name and number on it and pop it into the recycling bin for entry into the prize draw.”

A YouGov poll found that three quarters of 18 to 29-year-olds thought the recycling lottery a good idea, the organisation said.

Batteries
The NCC believes that the lottery scheme could be particularly important to help the UK to deal with what it describes as a “battery mountain” building up in UK landfills. About 25,000 tonnes of household and industrial batteries are thrown away each year, with only 1,000 tonnes of this being recycled.

Michael Green, managing director of West midlands battery reprocessors G&P; Batteries, which opened the UK's first recycling plant dedicated to household batteries earlier this month, said a “recycling lottery” would need a significant increase in household awareness before starting for it to work.

Mr Green said: “The UK has a long way to go to raise awareness in recycling generally, a mixture of national legitimate initiatives would certainly help and we would encourage them.”

A number of councils in the UK have used local prize draws to encourage householders to recycle, including Gateshead council (see letsrecycle.com story).

Defra is already working on what it terms “householder incentive schemes” to encourage people to recycle their waste (see letsrecycle.com story). An announcement on local authority trials for incentive schemes is expected soon.

In the mean time, the NCC told letsrecycle.com it will now be looking to gauge reaction to the report and work out what a next step would entail.