Discover The Rewards of Recycling

Southfield residents could win £20,000 to spend on environmental improvements for their ward

Ealing Council has launched its Recycling Reward Incentive Scheme, in which £20,000 will be given to the top four recycling wards in the borough.

Instead of rewarding individuals, the scheme will benefit whole communities meaning neighbours can work together to do something positive for the area their live in. Everyone who lives in the winning wards will get to have their say on how the money should be spent.

During this scheme the 23 electoral wards of Ealing will be competing against each other to win cash for their local area.

Prizes will be awarded to:

* the ward with the highest proportion of households recycling
* the three wards with the greatest improvement in recycling rates

Each winning ward will be awarded £20,000 to spend on environmental improvements in their communities, such as revamping a playground or installing new benches, possibly even made from recycled materials.

Southfield Ward is currently ranked 13th out of the 23 Wards in its recycling rate, recording an overall rate of 54.4% in September.

Measuring participation rates

The council used nationally recognised Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) methodology to carry out recycling participation surveys in each ward in September 2010. During certain collection rounds the council monitored the amount of recycling taking place in each of the wards, any street where all households receive the council’s weekly kerbside recycling collection services (e.g. green box, food waste, plastics) were eligible for monitoring.

The monitoring of rounds took place on three occasions, in consecutive weeks, to allow for the fact some people could have been away or on holiday. These three sets of figures were then rounded-up into an average percentage showing how well the recycling services were being used in each ward.

The council will compare these figures against participation rates from the next round of monitoring in Spring 2011. This comparison will be used to work out the winning wards; the ‘top performing ward’ and the three ‘most improved wards’. These four wards will each receive £20,000 to help their ward forum pay for local environmental improvements.

For full details please see http://www.ealing.gov.uk/recycling

December 3, 2010