Executive Summary: Evaluation of the Household Waste Incentives Pilot Scheme

In November 2002 the Strategy Unit report ‘Waste not, Want not’ recommended that local authorities should be allowed to take forward household incentive and charging schemes. The Strategy Unit saw this as an important tool to effectively engage with householders and encourage them to manage their waste more sustainably.

Subsequent research commissioned by Defra in 2004 revealed that local authorities in England already operate a wide variety of schemes rewarding householders for positive behaviour in the way they deal with their waste. The research also revealed, however, that there has been little systematic evaluation of the costs and benefits of these schemes. The primary recommendation was therefore to support the commitment made in Defra’s Five Year Strategy (December 2004) to undertake a pilot scheme to bring together a robust evidence base on the effectiveness of different incentive approaches.

In March 2005 the Environment Minister launched Defra’s pilot study of local authority household incentives in England. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a comprehensive range of incentive schemes in encouraging householders to reduce, reuse, recycle and compost their waste.

From the 94 applications received from local authorities, 51 proposals were originally selected, requesting Defra funding support of around £3.5m. The pilots that were elected involved a variety of different types of incentive, ranging from community league tables with environmental enhancements for the winning area, to pledges leading to equipment for schools, although the most popular were lottery-style prize draws.

Several of the selected pilots proposed the use of waste weighing technology to further assist in the accurate measurement of the impact of incentives. The proposals were selected to test the value of incentives on a whole range of different target populations, ranging from villages to high-rise estates, and from the highest performers (where the focus is on waste minimisation and on reducing contamination in recycling collections) to the lowest (where the focus is on encouraging more people to recycle). In total 100 districts and boroughs were involved in the pilots, as well as community groups and private sector organisations, and trial areas covered over 5.2 million households in England.

Local authorities assessed the outcomes and success of the pilot incentive schemes by monitoring a number of different data sets, including:

• monthly recycling tonnage figures (e.g. for control and incentivised collection rounds)

• pre and post-project participation rate monitoring (e.g. of a sample of residents on both control and incentivised collection rounds)

• the percentage of households actively engaging in the incentive (e.g. registering pledges to recycle)

• measurement of contamination rate by waste analysis studies and/or monitoring the number of rejected loads at transfer stations and MRFs.

• coverage of the project by the local media

• awareness and attitude surveys (e.g. via doorstepping)

• direct feedback from project partners and stakeholders (e.g. school headteachers)

Authorities were encouraged to adopt the use of pilot and control areas in order to assess the specific impact of applying an incentive and also to consider performance against a baseline standard (e.g. from 12 months earlier) to investigate any difference in recycling trends observed.

The Defra funded pilots could only be supported in the financial year 2005-06 and therefore schemes needed to be operational at the start of October 2005 in order for a six-month monitoring period to be available. In addition to the requirement to submit monthly monitoring data, at the end of the incentive trial in April 2006, all participating authorities were asked to complete a survey to assist in the understanding of what factors could influence the success of an incentive in promoting recycling.

• More than 5.2 million households have been covered by trial areas of local authorities involved in the October 2005 – March 2006 Defra Household Incentives Pilot Scheme.

• Total Defra funding support was around Ł3.1M, equating to an average of around Ł0.58 per household. It has not however been possible to provide a figure for the amount of additional funding and staff time that individual authorities have contributed to the trials. Analysis of the funding provided by Defra shows the actual costs of offering a financial incentive are relatively low compared to the comparative costs of promotion and monitoring and evaluation. The barriers to implementing incentives should therefore not be wholly financial if a robust waste data collection system is already in place.

• 43 of 53 (81%) trials had a positive, attributable impact in raising awareness through offering an incentive. This was measured by a variety of attitudinal surveys, door stepping questionnaires, pledges recorded, and increased level of media coverage (Advertising Value Equivalent - AVE, Opportunities To See - OTS, Opportunities To Hear - OTH). Creating an awareness of the incentive being offered is clearly vital to achieving a motivation to action in the target audience and generating a tangible improvement in performance.

• The remaining 9 of 53 (17%) trials (one is yet to be fully assessed) have been unsuccessful in recording a significant awareness of the incentive being offered. It is hardly surprising therefore that the corresponding measurement of impacts (contamination, participation, tonnage) has demonstrated no determinable impact attributable to the incentive trial. Of these nine trials, six were primarily focused upon individuals and three were community focused. This might suggest that more localised – perhaps suggesting more localised, community initiatives are easier to promote than broader initiatives offered to a large number of individuals.

• 30 of 53 (57%) trials had a positive, attributable impact increasing the tonnage of recyclables collected. The magnitude of these impacts however varied widely from small trials that yielded a few tonnes of additional recyclables or compostables to those that helped achieve increases of around 15% to recyclate tonnages collected across a complete collection authority. Around half of the trials show small (5-10%) but determinable increases in the levels of recyclate tonnage collected.

Difficulties in eliminating the potential impacts of largely uncontrollable, external factors (such as seasonal waste variations, temporary closure of household recycling centres, vehicle breakdowns or strikes by collection crews) have caused a significant degree of difficulty in being able to accurately determine the specific impacts directly attributable to the offer of an incentive. Based on the results from this research we conclude that incentives can be a useful tool to authorities that wish to enhance the performance of their waste collection service. However, they have a number of considerations to take into account when choosing an incentive to trial. There is, unfortunately, no ‘one size fits all’ ideal solution. The authority must first and foremost consider the barriers to recycling that it needs to address, such as: lack of participation; excessive contamination; infrequency of collection service; number or size of collection receptacles. The best solution may then actually be to introduce a service or infrastructure change, for example, collect more material types rather than an offering an incentive alone. Incentives should be seen as a means of maximising the efficiency of waste management infrastructure and service provision that is already available to householders. The assessment of trials conducted under this pilot programme suggests that the critical success factors to achieving an impact from an incentive scheme are those associated with the actual management of the scheme (Stakeholder Commitment, Ownership, Finance, Project Management and Communications) rather than ‘environmental’ or situational factors – such as geographical location of authority, local index of deprivation or existing recycling rates. The data from the pilot programme shows no direct correlation between the degree of impact of the trials and these latter factors. A simple six-step action plan is proposed for authorities to consider in order to derive maximum benefit from offering an incentive to householders:

• Step 1: Identify the barriers to improved performance

• Step 2: Define measurable targets and objectives

• Step 3: Develop key messages for the incentive

• Step 4: Engage stakeholders and partners

• Step 5: Implement incentive and supporting infrastructure

• Step 6: Review and feedback success

In addition to this Defra commissioned incentives research and pilot programme a number of guidance documents and toolkits are available to local authorities that are looking to optimise their recycling performance. Indeed this is part of the remit of WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) ROTATE (Recycling and Organics Technical Advisory Team) and a selection of the most relevant guidance, in the context of applying and monitoring incentives to complement waste management infrastructure and service provision, is highlighted in this report.

Concise summaries of all the pilot incentive schemes funded are included in Appendix 1 to this report. Not only do they all contain details of specific aspects associated with running a particular incentive but several also identify additional reports (e.g. attitudinal / participation surveys; waste analysis studies) that may be available from the particular authorities concerned to help inform authorities considering similar incentive trials.

Report to Defra from AEA Technology, Evaluation of Local Authority Experience of Operating Household Incentive Schemes’, 2005 is available on the WIP LASU website: http://lasupport.defra.gov.uk (link not valid, now).

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