Forum Topic

Ealing Council 'Green Rewards' scheme?

(i)  Residents can claim accumulated pennies for their effort in 'domestic recycling' - whether they actually recycle or not. No checking/monitoring is in place.(ii) Accumulated pennies could amount per household, annually, to £70 in 'vouchers'.  Which can only be exchanged in shops/businesses.  Doing so will create more materialism and consumption, resulting in more waste products and/or more air pollution.I don't understand.

Andy Horridge ● 4410d16 Comments

I've just updated to show I've recycled for another week and found new rewards available including sessions at the new Everyone Active in Acton.

Philippa Bond ● 4303d

You start with 100 points.There are the community projects above and more if you choose to donate your points to community projects.  Go onto the website and press the Donate button to see and read about the local community projects you can donate your points to.

Philippa Bond ● 4404d

http://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/councils/ealing-to-roll-out-recycling-incentives-from-2014I can't say I'm happy with the data collecting aspect of it.  How truthful is everybody with this?  I wouldn't want anyone to compromise their security.Landfill Tax went up again in April.  This has been set by Government to go up each year to encourage Councils to recycle more waste.  We need to be using our waste as a resource and that doesn't just mean incinerating it.http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rates/landfill-tax.htm

Philippa Bond ● 4407d

I happen to think that those who don't recycle should be challenged but it is a bit of a political problem isn't it?  Which is why nothing happens.Probably a lot of people won't be bothered with the fiddling around with websites. We do start with a gift of 100 points.The interesting part as far as I am concerned is being able to donate your points to a local community project that you may have an interest in.Go to the above website and click on the Donate button and you will see the local community projects that have been registered so far. 

Philippa Bond ● 4407d

Andy,I regret that the scheme did cost £700K of which about £300K is going to be spent on advertising it.  I have to say I am not very sure about the scheme and too much of it is advertising and the ads themselves are very poor.  The council did well to get £1.1 million from DCLG to help us increase recycling.  The part of this that will be spent on flats recycling and WEE banks will most likely be worthwhile.  Personally I think the £700K would have been better spent directly engaging with non-participators.  I can't see the value in having existing recyclers diddling about with websites.

Phil Taylor ● 4407d

They ran an initiative in Windsor.The softies think that encouragement is required to help those that don't do any recycling to join in.  This is the carrot.  You know what suckers the British are for freebies!Lots of money came from a grant from Central Government.

Philippa Bond ● 4408d

Andy, I think this is a genuine 'GreenRedeem' reward scheme by our Ealing Council - at least I believe so.

Gerry Tan ● 4408d

I'm sorry but isn't this story an April Fool's joke? Look at the date at the end of the article. The notion that £700,000 has been spent on this simply isn't believable. Not even Ealing Council would waste money in this way on such a grand scale.

Andy Jones ● 4408d

There is such a choice of technology now that advertising anything and arranging for everything to be available for everyone is a nightmare and an expensive one.We could and we often do just seem to argue ourselves into stasis.

Philippa Bond ● 4408d

A Council spokesperson said they expect most residents will generally register for the scheme for free, I will be surprised if there is a 10% of household take-up. A smartphone app is totally useless to a BT landline or basic mobile.

Fred Hunt ● 4408d

That's why I made the point about the call being from a BT landline.

Nigel Brooks ● 4408d

Sorry, correction to last post.  Not all 0844 or 0870/1 numbers are free, but they say about 70% as they are unable to get an alternative number for some.  They will tell you if that is the case.  Also, if you put into a queue, they will queue for you and call you back.  No charge.

Charles Campbell ● 4408d

0844 numbers are free if you use the app WeQ4u on your iphone or other mobile

Charles Campbell ● 4408d

Banning national politics from local politics would be even better.  We end up with a lot of wasted energy time and effort.What in life is perfect?  When does life go according to plan?There are community projects on here that you can donate your points to.Why not get something registered that you would like to donate your points to.  So far there are planters for a school, community beehives, bike maintenance, and more...

Philippa Bond ● 4408d

The nonsense of this scheme is that there are no checks on anyone who clicks 'I Have Recycled'. OK, the 'reward' for clicking in only 3.3p but it is still 'money for nothing'.Equally if you cannot report your recycling online and call the 0844 number from a BT landline the call to get your 3.3p will cost you 20p! (5p plus a 15p call setup fee).Yet another ill-considered scheme from 'Bell's Buffoons'.Roll on May 22!

Nigel Brooks ● 4408d

There is supposed to be a community element to this.If you have a community project that you would choose to put your reward points towards why not see if you can get it added.I see from the Acton website that Sara Nathan has tried to get the Trussell Trust involved and David Eales (Ealing Cycling Campaign?) the youth bike maintenance programme.I would prefer to support something like that.  I think it would be more interesting to join together as a group to support something.

Philippa Bond ● 4409d