A Wasted Opportunity?
Householders’ responsibilities and expectations Charging directly for waste services would change householders’ interactions with the waste system. At present they have little choice over the service they receive or how it is funded. Unleashing the potential of householders as customers rather than taking the service they are given without question is potentially very powerful. Different people will respond to different actions, with some needing reassurance that other people will also take part and others needing information or encouragement.67 Social norms seem to be much more powerful than material incentives in encouraging recycling. Defra’s pilot study of incentives Defra’s pilot study of incentives produced minor produced minor improvements at significant cost in many cases.68 improvements at significant cost in many cases Social responsibility is a major factor in recycling; people seem prepared to take responsibility if others around them do so too.69 How to develop a sense of personal responsibility in areas where there is less social cohesion or the local environment is already compromised is a challenge. Giving financial incentives, such as in the RecycleBank scheme, is an approach that has not been rolled out on any scale in the UK but offers a way to bring people into recycling who presently are not doing it.
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RecycleBank RecycleBank is an innovative scheme in the United States which has recently been launched in
the UK. It offers rewards such as shopping vouchers to households who recycle.70 Interestingly,
its use of chips in bins to identify the owner is central but relatively uncontroversial because it is linked directly to the rewards for recycling, in the form of discounts and shopping vouchers. Recyclebank has begun a trial with Windsor and Maidenhead council. While this is a small
pilot limited to garden waste, it will be interesting to see if it replicates Defra’s findings – that
incentives tend to reward those who are already recycling – or if it does drive up composting rates, as RecycleBank’s American experience would suggest.
Incentives have the potential to be a key part of waste and recycling, if cleverly deployed.
The right incentive for the targeted households and communities could be a very effective
driver of recycling and separation, although the devil will be in the detail.
Paying for waste 67 “A Framework for Pro-environmental Behaviours”, Defra, January 2008
68 “Evaluation of the Household Waste Incentives Pilot Scheme”, Defra, July 2006
69 “I will if you will”, Sustainable Consumption Roundtable, 2006
70 “Background to RecycleBank”, RecycleBank
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policyexchange.org.uk
Waste services will, for the foreseeable future, have to be paid for even if the value of the materials is fully realised. While the shift to resource management will change the nature of the waste system, the infrastructure alone will require billions of pounds of investment that will eventually be recovered from consumers’ bills. Transparency in billing is vital to avoid any charges being seen as a stealth tax. Itemising the cost of waste services on council tax bills will have several benefits. Demonstrating how small a proportion of the bill goes on waste will make any future changes to the service easier to accept. As always, transparency in where public money is spent is essential to public confidence.