News & Media > Environmental Services
25:01:2010
'Carrot and stick' won't cut waste
Nicola made her remarks in a guest column in Recycling & Waste World magazine on 21 January, which reads as follows:
Should we pay people to recycle? It’s a debate that’s been rolling on for months.
Residents living in the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead are already trialling an incentive scheme, with microchips monitoring the amount of recycling they put out for collection. The keenest recycling households are rewarded with vouchers for high-street retailers, such as M&S.
The Tories have cited this as a method to make Britain ‘Go Green’, announcing that if they got into power they’d introduce a framework for ‘most’ UK households to be paid to recycle.
You cannot argue that the scheme has seen recycling rates increase, but let’s take a moment to question how an initiative that rewards people with vouchers to purchase and consume more will actually reduce waste. And how can it possibly be economically viable – for the retailers involved or for local authorities?
If every household in the UK was rewarded with £130 a year, more than £3bn of payouts would need to be made. The maths just doesn’t add up. And in a period of serious public sector cutbacks, where exactly is that money coming from?
Not to mention the likelihood of an army of bin-thieves raiding their neighbours’ recycling to boost their own voucher-count.
Add to this stories of residents using financial rewards for transatlantic flights, and it simply makes a mockery of the scheme’s green principles.
While carrot and stick schemes might have a short-term impact and headline grabbing appeal, they’re not the long-term answer.
We have to get to the root of people’s habits and encourage them to produce less waste in the first place. We can do that by introducing carefully considered, policy-led decisions that show a real commitment to compulsory recycling across the country.
Take food waste. Evidence proves that if people are given the tools to recycle food waste at home, they dramatically reduce the amount they throw away.
Forced to realise they are overbuying and throwing money in the bin alongside the potato peelings, people start to change their habits and buy less in the first place.
Weekly food waste collections have had fantastic results, cutting household food waste by up to 25%. That equates to around £100 per year in saved grocery bills. Isn’t that the more sensible, sustainable answer?
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