Our Experience

Research into the effects of aesthetic containers on recycling rates in urban areas

Client:

Egbert Taylor

Project:

LRS was engaged to monitor the effects of aesthetic containers on recycling rates, with the aim to determine whether the installation of visually appealing ‘node and ‘street’ containers could encourage residents to recycle more.

Solution:

LRS engaged with the participating boroughs; Hackney, Lambeth and Westminster to ask them to identify sites that would benefit from the installation of the new recycling units.  Each borough then selected its trial locations – 10 in total across the 3 boroughs.  These locations represented, as far as possible, different socio-economic, political and geographical backgrounds.  The proposed locations were then visited by LRS to assess their suitability for installation of the new units.  The assessments took into account; the number of residents to be serviced on each site, accessibility for collection crews, communications opportunities and space available for bins. 

Following installation of the bins, letters were distributed to all residents, informing them of the location of the containers and detailing what materials could be collected for recycling.

LRS then visually monitored the ‘fill level’ of each of the bins on a weekly basis, in order to assess usage rates.  The fill levels were mapped against a WRAP template to enable percentage fill levels to be converted into kilograms of materials collected.

At the end of the trials the kilograms of recyclable material per resident, across all of the sites was calculated.

Outcome:

  • A total of 17.1 tonnes of recyclable material were collected across the 10 sites over the 7 week trial period
  • The amount and mix of materials collected throughout the trial equated to diversion of 16.7 tonnes of CO²
  • The new bins increased recycling rates by 13.9% in Westminster, 19% in Hackney and 22% in Lambeth
  • All of the new sites performed above the average recycling rates for flats, according to WRAP guidance

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