A scheme designed to encourage people to bin litter by rewarding charities based on the amount put in on-street bins has seen litter in central Birmingham decrease by almost a third.

Keep Britain Tidy’s Bin it for Good initiative, rolled out in seven local authorities in September, donates more money to a selected local charity the more waste people put in public bins.

Council operatives picked up 145.66 kilogrammes (kg) of litter during the week of 17-23 September, a decrease of 30 per cent from the amount collected during preliminary monitoring in the week of August 18-24

The 48 bins in Birmingham covered by the three-month scheme, meanwhile, had 2.03 tonnes of rubbish deposited in them during the week, an increase of 8.9 per cent on the week in August.

The participating bins all have large stickers promoting the scheme, reminding the public to bin their waste rather than littering. Money raised from the Birmingham bins will go to local charity LoveBrum, which supports community projects in the city.

The final payout, up to £1,300, will be calculated on a sliding scale based on tonnages collected in designated bins.

Potential issue of binned recyclables

When the scheme was announced in September, there were concerns that basing the payout on the amount of waste put in refuse bins would encourage the public to bin recyclable materials in order to boost the tonnage.

There is no monitoring of waste composition as part of the scheme, though a spokesperson for Birmingham City Council stated that an unrelated three-month pilot scheme began two weeks ago that saw 10 separate recycling bins placed in high-traffic areas of Birmingham City Centre.

Other areas covered by the scheme do not have such facilities.

When asked in September about the issue, a Keep Britain Tidy spokesperson told Resource: “In addition to measuring the waste disposed in bins versus that littered, we will also be monitoring visitors’ disposal behaviours and interactions with the ‘charity collection pot’ bins in order to better assess the impacts of the campaign and gain further insights. We are hoping in the future to trial a similar initiative looking at community incentives in relation to recycling on-the-go but the development of that project is still in its early stages.”

Scheme ‘has social and economic benefits’

Responding to the results showing a reduction in litter, Cllr Lisa Trickett, Cabinet Member for Sustainability at Birmingham City Council, said: “The early results are extremely encouraging and would appear to show that this scheme is making a positive contribution towards our aim of achieving cleaner streets in the city centre.

“The great thing about Bin it for Good is that the scheme has social and economic benefits too – local charities get extra funding, and a cleaner city centre will make Birmingham more attractive to visitors and citizens, helping local businesses in the process.

“This sort of project has been proven to be a success in other parts of the country, so we will continue to closely monitor what happens here. If the good results continue, it is definitely something we will consider on a wider basis in future.”

Pilot and other participating areas

Keep Britain Tidy first piloted the project in Rayleigh town centre, Essex, in 2014. According to the charity’s figures, during the three months that the ‘charity bins’ were in use, litter in the area reduced by 40 per cent. In addition, over £1,300 was raised for three local charities over the three months.

The six other areas that are taking part in the ‘Bin it for Good’ scheme are:

• Barnet Homes – Grahame Park Estate
• Breckland District Council – Thetford town centre
• Manchester City Council – Oxford Road corridor
• Northumberland County Council – Prudhoe town centre
• Thanet District Council – Margate Old Town and Harbour Arm
• Wirral Metropolitan Council – Arrowe Park, Central Park and Plymyard Playing Fields

Find out more about Bin it for Good.