Westminster decides against introduction of RecycleBank

The London borough claimed that it would be unable to adopt the system – which sees households being given an individual wheeled-bin fitted with equipment to calculate the weight of material – due to “logistical problems” involved in the high number of flats and communal waste collections within its boundaries.

The comments come one week after the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead announced that it would be the first UK local authority to introduce the RecycleBank system with a trial of the scheme beginning in May (see letsrecycle.com story).

Vocal support for the incentive scheme has come from London Mayor Boris Johnson who claimed that he wanted to test the system in Conservative areas such as Windsor and Maidenhead and Westminster – before potentially rolling it out across London (see letsrecycle.com story). 

The Conservatives believe that the scheme is a better way to encourage recycling than plans by the government for financial recycling incentive schemes – because it rewards those who recycle instead of rewarding those who do and penalising those who don't.

However, speaking to letsrecycle.com, a spokeswoman for Westminster city council said that the implementation of the system would be difficult due to the prevailing type of houses in the local authority and the way in which the American system operates – through large wheeled bins, fitted with weighing technology.

The spokeswoman said: “It's not something we are pursuing at the moment. Basically it's difficult logistically in an area like Westminster where the majority of residents live in flats and waste is collected communally, i.e. people don't have their own individual wheelie bins that can be weighed easily.”

Cities

Despite these comments, RecycleBank itself claimed that the system was adaptable to various environments and said that it had not experienced problems in introducing the scheme to urban areas in North America.

Lisa Pomerantz, marketing and communications director at RecycleBank, said: “Today we are in just under 300,000 households across 17 states in the US. Those homes range from urban cities to suburban neighborhoods. We have proven results in every type of environment that RecycleBank increases household recycling rates.”

“Our program works because it works for everyone. Our demographic is every person because we know that everybody can recycle. Recycling is something that everybody can do today to make a difference. Our program is simple and rewarding. Two key ingredients for our success,” she added.

The reasons given by Westminster are not the first time a council has seen the system as unworkable, as a local authority in the scheme's pilot city of Philadelphia removed the RecycleBank scheme in July last year due to the increased time and manpower it demanded.

Despite having 1,100 residents participating in the reward scheme, Philadelphia's Chestnut Hill council reported that RecycleBank collections added two hours to pick-up days because bins had to be weighed to calculate the value of their contents and crews also struggled to collect and weigh the wheeled bins (see letsrecycle.com story).