Councils that reward people for recycling are far more successful than those who use compulsory schemes, new figures have revealed.
Over the last five years, local authorities using rewards have seen rates increase to almost 27% while those attempting to force people to recycle managed to reach less than 15%.
Greenredeem, which runs council recycling rewards schemes, used Freedom of Information requests to obtain statistics on dry recycling.
The company said it hoped the recent launch by the Government of a £5m Recycling Rewards Scheme Fund would encourage more councils to adopt rewards.
‘It’s clear that the Government can see the benefit of incentive schemes,’ said Rob Crumbie, communications director at Greenredeem. ‘However, this research offers the evidence for local authorities that has so far been lacking: the carrot is twice as effective as the stick at improving dry recycling rates.
‘We would encourage all local authorities, whether they plan an incentive-based scheme or not, to take up Eric Pickles’ offer of the Recycling Rewards Scheme Fund.
‘This research demonstrates that rewards programmes have real impact on local dry recycling rates, as well as wider benefits for residents, local business and community causes. We would strongly encourage local authorities to adopt such schemes if they are serious at hitting the government target of a 50% recycling rate by 2020.’