Recycling Rewards for Schools

The award winning Recycling Rewards for Schools campaign was developed in Hyndburn back in 2003. Since then it has been run throughout around 10% of the local authorities in England including; Lancashire, Cumbria, County Durham, Leicestershire, Wigan, Knowsley, Bury, Hyndburn, Calderdale and The Isle of Wight.

Campaigns are made specific to each area where they are run, although the basic concept is the same throughout. Below is a case study of the campaign that was run in Cumbria over three years to great success.

The Concept

The concept of Recycling Rewards for Schools was developed in response to the growing need for householders to recycle more. Only a relatively small proportion of the population actively recycled out of a desire to help preserve the environment. The remainder, it seemed, did not worry about the impact of their inactivity.

This apparent apathy led A&P to believe that an additional incentive would be required to ‘jump start’ these non-recycling householders into action. Whatever the motivation, it needed to be strong enough to bring about new recycling habits, not just effect a temporary change in behaviour.

The first challenge was to identify a common cause or incentive that would motivate an optimum number of the population – a cause strong enough for them to want to recycle and to encourage others to do so too.

To change the behaviour of 100% of householders is implausible; therefore the key was to define the factor that links the largest number of the population. Schools were identified as the cause that unites the largest number of householders.

The concept of linking rewards for schools with commercial sales promotions is not new. Sainsburys, Tesco and Cadbury, to name but three, have all run equipment for schools campaigns and, more importantly, continue to do so, because they have proved so successful.

Cumbria
Year 1 – 2005/6

The first campaign was launched alongside neighbouring county Lancashire, and district authorities Wigan, Knowsley and Bury. It was funded by DEFRA from part of the national recycling incentive schemes pilot fund.

Over the five months the campaign ran, a total of 75,000 pledges were achieved with 14,928 of them emanating from Cumbrian households via 96 primary schools.

Year 2 – 2006/7

Following the success of the first year, the main objective of the second was to grow the number of pledging households to a critical mass sufficient to register real changes in recycling behaviour across the county, and to record measurable increases in recycling tonnages.

The 2006/7 campaign was launched at the start of November 2006, with 206 primary schools in Cumbria agreeing to participate. Over the duration of the scheme, 173 schools actively participated, achieving a total of 27,835 pledges.

Year 3 – 2007/8

The campaign was run for a final third year to reinforce existing pledges that had already been made, and to achieve involvement from those schools and pupils that had not yet participated.

A total of 35,500 individual pledges were received over the duration of the campaign, of which 29,771 were new pledges, and 5,729 were repeat pledges.

Since the campaign began in 2005, 72,296 households made a pledge to recycle in Cumbria, with a total of 235 schools actively participating over the three years. Over that time 6,372 pupils actively took part in canvassing recycling pledges from householders in Cumbria.

 

Campaign Reach

The Recycling Rewards for Schools concept communicates on four key levels:

i) Schools
School involvement over the duration of the campaign helps and encourages them to think about recycling both at school and at home. This acts as a powerful tool for teachers, pupils and parents in spreading the issues and importance of recycling. Coming from the school, this acts as a particularly influential device in transferring the message home.

ii) Pupils
Involving children helps to educate them with recycling issues, and encourages them to take more of an interest about what they are doing to recycle at school and at home. It is this element of ‘Pester Power’ that forms a powerful driver for behavioural change over traditional marketing methods.

iii) Householders
The surrounding concept of the Recycling Rewards for Schools scheme is about using pupils as the ‘recycling messengers’ to transfer the message to family and friends. By signing a Pledge to recycle, householders become emotionally attached to recycle more, knowing that by doing so, they shall benefit the child and their school. The ‘contract of conscience’ (from completing a pledge) has proved very effective in bringing about positive behavioural changes in recycling activity.

iv) PR
The nature of the campaign lends itself to a positive spread of the recycling messages. Publicity is very popular through local media since recycling topics are current. The link to primary schools offers more relevant messages to the local community.

A series of press releases showing schools and pupils getting rewards for helping to encourage recycling gives very positive PR – local media are keen to give good coverage.