Success for #LeedsByExample by Hubbub

The BBC shared an article on 3rd December detailing the hard work that our friends at Hubbub have been conducting in one of our homes, Leeds. The #LeedsByExample campaign saw the deployment of colourful and, in some cases, rewarding bins designed to engage the public in the process of recycling. This project was trialled from 2018-2019 and has been success, seeing the collection of 1.2 million cups within the year.

Reviewing the success, Trewin Restorick (Hubbub founder) put together a detailed blog, outlining the main conclusions of the trial. We were fortunate enough to have Trewin speak, both at our 2018 conference and in our March Webinar ‘Engaging the public in Resource Management’. To summarise the key elements in Trewin’s blog:

1. Collaboration is key between local authority, local organisations, corporate partners and waste industry departments or contractor
2. Consistent communications are crucial, displaying bold and clear instructions from the ‘point of purchase to the point of disposal
3. Quality of recycling can vary and is affected by bin positioning – recycling bins located where the public have more time to engage were more successful that locations with high footfall
4. Recycle reward machines are popular with the public – some of these gave discount tickets for future coffee
5. Cup collections are important – there are still improvements to be made with regard how informed the public are on how to recycle, but the great numbers of cups collected demonstrate how successful a project like this can be
6. Make recycling simple, visual and fun – Colourful, playful but convenient bins incentivise members of the public to engage in the recycling process
7. A project like this requires consistent monitoring – “To-date there has been limited comparable research to measure the effectiveness of  on-the-go  recycling.  Leeds By Example provides some robust insight on this issue and was able to demonstrate it performed better than other recycling on-the-go schemes based on research done by WRAP. Further data is needed to understand the impact of recycling in different locations and to establish a robust set of recommendations for other towns and cities.  ”

The project has now been handed over for management by Leeds City Council and Zero Waste Leeds – a local partner, allowing Hubbub to continue deploying innovative solutions across the country.