Campaign reduces recycling contamination levels to 1%

7 April 2008

In October 2007 Shanks East London commissioned Waste Watch to run a campaign in two pilot areas to increase resident awareness of what materials they can recycle and reduce contamination.

Waste disposal company Shanks had noticed that some residents in the area were frequently contaminating their orange recycling sacks with materials that could not be processed at local recycling facilities. They decided to select two trial areas with high levels of contamination for the campaign; one in the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham and one in the London Borough of Havering.

Waste Watch produced information leaflets, bin stickers and letters for the campaign and prepared a news release for local media before the campaign started. The news release explained the project and the issues around contamination and let residents know that the campaign was about to begin.

We also provided training sessions for collection crews in the pilot areas so they were able to understand why contamination was a problem and how this should be communicated to residents.

Our Contamination Monitors accompanied Shanks recycling collection crews on their rounds for six weeks. When they came across heavily contaminated sacks they put an information leaflet through the door reminding householders what materials they can recycle. In one pilot area they also placed contamination stickers on the actual recycling sack explaining why it could not be collected.

In one of the trial areas households which repeatedly placed the wrong materials in their sacks received a follow up letter from the council outlining why the Council was concerned about contamination and explaining that an Enforcement Officer would visit if the problem persisted.

Nicholas Hannon, the campaign's Project Manager said, "In general residents were receptive to the communications materials and the increasingly stronger messages distributed to repeat offenders also proved effective in reducing contamination throughout the campaign."

The results from both trial areas show contamination fell significantly - in Havering from 14.7% to 1.0% and in Barking & Dagenham from 17.9% to 6.9%.

Councillor Barry Tebbutt, Cabinet Member for StreetCare and Parking Services in Havering, said, "This campaign has been very successful and I want to thank all the residents who have responded to our campaign by using their orange sacks correctly, helping Havering to recycle more."

If you are concerned about contamination in your area, we can help. Contact Tim Burns on 020 7549 0302.