Our Common Place

A stronger approach to waste and recycling

Strong recycling performance is one of several indicators of a strong community. Recognising this, the Our Common Place programme seeks to improve recycling and reduce waste in communities by working on this issue as part of a wider community building effort.

Rather than working on recycling in isolation, we work alongside other community development initiatives, addressing recycling issues where and when appropriate. We are currently engaging with residents living in large blocks of flats across 23 communities across London. Residents identify local priorities and lead the design and delivery of up to three initiatives to improve recycling performance and build community cohesion. Initiatives taking place range from sewing classes to swap shops or from skills sharing to ‘help your neighbour’ recycle campaigns.

Through the training and experiences residents receive as active participants in the project, Our Common Place is also building the capacity of communities. Our aim is to ensure that the initiatives we catalyse are sustained beyond our intervention. In designing and delivering we aim to follow the lead and enthusiasm of the residents we engage with. This ensures that, as well as being trained to deliver the initiatives, residents are motivated enough to sustain them when we leave as well as having developed skills to support them to do so.

Measuring impact

We are measuring the impact of Our Common Place upon local social and environmental outcomes, such as well-being, recycling and local environmental quality. We hope to share the results of this first stage of the programme by Summer 2012.

If you are interested in participating or funding our work in this area please contact Morgan Phillips – Morgan.Phillips@wastewatch.org.uk

In this section