A three-month anti-litter pilot scheme in the main shopping areas of Birmingham city centre has reportedly reduced litter by half.

Birmingham was one of seven local authorities across England that took part in pilots of the ‘Bin it for Good’ initiative late last year, supported by Keep Britain Tidy, The Wrigley Company and Retail Birmingham Business Improvement District (BID).

The amount of litter placed in 48 bins in Birmingham was monitored from September to November 2015. ‘Bin it for Good’ stickers placed on participating residual waste bins informed the public that the more litter deposited in the bins, the more money would be donated to charity. There are no recycling-on-the-go facilities in the area where the pilot took place.

The charity to benefit from the campaign was LoveBrum, an organisation supporting local good causes, which received £1,350 from the initiative due to the percentage of litter placed in bins rising from 89.95 to 95.06 per cent of overall waste over the three-month trial. This means that the amount of litter picked up from the streets within the BID more than halved over the same time.

Impact gives other areas of city food for thought

Responding to the results of the scheme, Councillor Lisa Trickett, Cabinet Member for Sustainability, said: “Given we spend £13 million annually on street cleaning, we are delighted with the results from this pilot project.

“It was a scheme that had been a success in other parts of the country, but you can never be sure if the findings will be achievable elsewhere until you try it yourself.

“Now we know the impact this project has had in the city centre, it is now for districts and wards across the city to now reflect on whether this is something that they feel has the ability to deliver on what is consistently raised as a top priority by residents – cleaner streets in their neighbourhoods.”

Tim Andrews, Chairman of LoveBrum, added: “We were delighted to partner and support this great initiative. LoveBrum is a ‘movement’ for a better Birmingham, it unearths and funds hard to reach, hidden gem charities and organisations, which are helping to make Birmingham a better place to live and work, so our objectives are perfectly aligned. It’s great to think LoveBrum helped to reduce the litter in our city centre.”

Steve Hewlett, BID manager at Retail Birmingham, added: “The Bin it for Good campaign has been very positive. We have seen people using the bins more often, helping to keep the city centre shopping streets clean whilst raising money for a great charity.”

Keep Britain Tidy ‘monitoring visitors’ disposal behaviours’

There were initial concerns that the scheme would result in recyclable items being disposed of in stickered bins or encouraging the public to create more waste to raise money for charity.

This was in part due to the lack of street recycling facilities provided and promotional material showing members of the public placing plastic bottles into general waste bins.

To clarify the situation, Resource enquired if measures would be taken to stop recyclable materials entering stickered bins.

A spokesperson for Keep Britain Tidy said: “This is something we have given consideration to – waste prevention and recycling are main focus areas for Keep Britain Tidy. This iteration of the Bin it for Good campaign is testing whether community incentives can be an effective approach to preventing littering behaviours at different location types; the areas chosen for the project do not currently have recycling-on-the-go facilities.

“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.”

Ten recycling bins have been placed in busy areas of Birmingham city centre, however this scheme was unrelated to the ‘Bin it for Good’ initiative and did not cover the same areas of the city.

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 took part in the ‘Bin it for Good’ scheme last year were:

• 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.