Recycling your rubbish correctly could earn £150 a year

Ben Webster, Environment Editor
Householders will earn up to £150 a year from recycling their rubbish under a scheme designed to reward those who put waste in the correct bins.
Microchips will be installed on wheelie bins, which will be scanned and weighed automatically as they are emptied into refuse lorries.
Councils will issue rewards based on the weight of recyclable waste collected from each home. Some of the plastics will go to a plastic recyling facility in Dagenham, East London. Initially, the rewards will be in the form of vouchers redeemable at local shops. At a later stage, authorities may introduce cash payments or discounts on council tax bills.
Councils will carry out spot checks to catch people who try to exploit the system by putting heavy non-recyclable items into their recycling bins. Culprits will be sent a warning letter but for repeated offences could be fined or lose their entitlement to vouchers.
Householders will be able to track their recycling levels and rewards online.
The scheme will be piloted next year in several London boroughs and will cover up to 100,000 homes.
Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, is holding talks with six boroughs that are interested in taking part in the trials. He believes that offering rewards will be much more effective than fines in reducing the amount of waste going to landfill.
Britain has one of the poorest records on recycling household waste of any country in Europe. In London only 21 per cent is recycled, even though more than 60 per cent could be.
Leading to a Greener London, the mayor’s environmental strategy published today, states: “The typical financial benefit to households in London could be about £14 a month, assuming they recycle an additional 100-200kg a year.”
Isabel Dedring, the mayor’s environment adviser, said that the vouchers would be provided by retailers and local businesses, which would benefit from increased trade.
She said that councils were also likely to pass on to households some of the savings they will make from sending less waste to landfill sites. The landfill tax will rise to £48 a tonne next year, up from £40 a tonne this year.
Some local authorities, including the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, have adopted an alternative approach of threatening to fine residents who fail to recycle.
Ms Dedring said that rewarding good behaviour was likely to be more effective. “If the carrot works there will be no need for a stick.”
She declined to the name the boroughs that are interested in taking part in the trials but said all those chosen were likely to be in Outer London.
This is because they have a high proportion of homes that have their own wheelie bins for recycling. In Inner London, most people live in flats and share recycling boxes.
Ms Dedring is considering a special scheme for people in flats under which they would still share bins but also share the rewards with all those living in their block.
Last month the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead began a reward scheme under which householders receive points, which can be converted into retail vouchers, every time they leave out their garden waste wheelie bin. The points earned do not yet vary according to weight, but the total amount of garden waste collected has still risen sharply.
Mr Johnson’s strategy also includes plans to plant 10,000 trees on streets by 2012 and introduce subsidies to encourage roof-top gardens.
These are among several ideas designed to reduce the “urban heat island” effect, under which buildings absorb and release heat and cause cities to be several degrees hotter than surrounding areas.
Ms Dedring said climate projections showed that average summer temperatures in London could be some 3.9C higher than today by 2080, and as much as 6C to 10C on the hottest days.
A study from Manchester suggests that increasing the amount of greenery in a city by 10 per cent could offset the higher temperatures.
The Mayor’s environment plan is aiming to increase tree cover across the capital by 5 per cent — an extra 2 million trees — by 2025.