Reuse to be rewarded in pioneering London scheme

The initiative has been hailed as the first of its kind to recognise and encourage positive environmental behaviour by the West London Waste Authority, which will introduce it on a pilot basis in Brent and Richmond in April 2012. If successful, it will be rolled out across West London.

Under the scheme residents will be encouraged to sign up to receive a reward card. Every time they buy reuse items for example clothing from a participating charity shop, or use a participating business which prevents waste or reuses products such as a shoe repairer or a hire shop they will receive a credit, which they can add to their reward card online.

For every 10 spent in a charity shop (with a minimum spend of 4.50) residents will also receive credit. Once they have collected 10 credits, they will have 5 which can be spent in one of the participating businesses or charities. Alternatively, they can choose to donate the money to selected community groups three will be chosen for each borough.

Taking large items such as furniture or white goods into a participating community reuse organisation will also generate rewards for participating householders. In this case, the amount of reward will depend on the value of the item to the reuse organisation or charity.

The WLWA has stressed that the final list of activities which will allow residents to accrue rewards will depend on the charities and businesses that sign up to the scheme.

Defra funding

The launch of the scheme has been made possible with the award of 133,532 from Defras Household Reward and Recognition fund to the WLWA. The fund was launched as part of the June 2011 Waste Review, with a 500,000 funding pot for 2011/12 and 17 projects in all have received support.

The scheme will then be funded by a combination of subscription fees paid by business partners and a commission paid by both business and charity partners. This commission is calculated on the basis of businesses paying a 5% fee for every 500 spent with them on a reuse/prevention activity, and charities paying 5% (25) for every 1,000 spent.

Businesses will not have to pay any commission on money spent by residents on non-reuse activities at the same time as they are spending money on activities covered by the scheme. They will, however, have to give residents credit every time they complete a reuse-based activity which will be matched up with those added by residents to their reward cards.

Sarah Dickinson, waste minimisation officer at the WLWA, told letsrecycle.com that the amount to be paid by a business to join the scheme would depend on whether a sponsor was secured for the initiative.

While she did not reveal the possible amount, she explained: We have an idea but if we can find a sponsor we can maybe reduce what were hoping the fee will be.

Search for participants

With funding secured, the WLWA is also beginning a search for the businesses and charities who will take part in the scheme, with Ms Dickinson noting that it wanted as many as we can get to sign up.

Weve only been able to publicise this scheme for three days so havent had much opportunity to sign up organisations but we have the support of the London Reuse Network, London Community Resource Network and one local furniture organisation, Furnish have agreed in principle to sign up, she said.

We hope that local publicity will encourage more organisations to contact us and in October/November we will actively be contacting organisations to tell them about the opportunity this scheme provides them with and asking them to take part.

In terms of community groups wanting to be chosen to receive rewards, the plan is to ask groups to submit written applications to take part, with residents then being given the opportunity to vote either online or in person for the three they want to see chosen in each borough.

Full roll-out

If the scheme is successful the WLWA plans to roll it put to the four other boroughs whose waste it manages Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon and Hounslow.

Ms Dickinson explained that the performance of the scheme would be closely scrutinised as a condition of the funding award from Defra. We have to do a full and in-depth monitoring and evaluation as a condition of the funding, she said.

The significance of the initiative was highlighted by the chair of the WLWA, councillor Bassam Mahfouz, who said: Recycling levels are already high in west London but it is vital that we build on this by improving reuse and waste prevention. There was a great deal of competition for this Defra funding and it is a tremendous achievement to have secured such a sizeable amount.

The reward scheme we can now launch will break entirely new ground by offering a cash benefit to residents who act responsibly.

The scheme is the latest initiative which aims to reward householders for pushing waste up the now-statutory waste hierarchy. Three councils have signed up the US-devised recycling rewards scheme RecycleBank, while Birmingham city council last month became the first local authority to work with Nectar to reward residents for recycling (see letsrecycle.com story).