By Andrew Pring | 3 September 2014
Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles has announced £5m of funding for councils in a bid to encourage recycling without the need for a reduction in bin collection services.
The funding will be awarded to councils with weekly collections who want to increase their recycling rates by giving incentives such as shopping vouchers and other rewards.
The move comes as the Deregulation Bill is set to stop councils hitting households with unfair bin fines for breaching what Pickles called complex and arbitrary waste rules, and follows guidance issued to every council in England in January urging weekly collections.
Pickles insisted it was a ‘myth’ that fortnightly bin collections or levies were needed to increase recycling.
Forty pilot schemes for such reward schemes had already led to an increase in rates, he said. These include an initiative in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead where residents earn points for recycling, which they can then spend at local shops. This has led to an increase of in recycling rates of more than one-third since being introduced in 2010.
‘Rewards for recycling show how working with families can deliver environmental benefits without the draconian approach of punishing people and leaving out smelly rubbish,’ he said.
‘This government is protecting the local environment by supporting recycling, as well as championing weekly collections which protect local amenity and public health. Councils with fortnightly collections will not receive government funding and are short-changing their residents with an inferior service.
‘There is an alternative to the town hall bin barons who pushed through fortnightly bin collections and are now trying to move to monthly bin collections by stealth.’
Bids for the fund opened on August 29 and will close on November 7. Successful bids will be announced in January 2015 and the money will be paid from next April.
