Proposal Form

Research Plan

Lincolnshire City Council

https://www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/

The Lincolnshire City Council provides detailed information on how, where, and what to recycle to the general public.

This is good, because people need to be able to find the recycling centres, and sometimes they need to find out what they can actually recycle, and what bin they need to put it in. They also mention to clean the recycling waste so that it doesn’t contaminate the rest of the bag and ruin it all.

It is a little difficult to find out this information however, and it could be made easier to access and see to increase the awareness of where, how, why, and what to recycle as a lot of people simply don’t know.

Smart Bin

https://www.smartbin.com/

Smart Bin utilises detectors in the bin which notify the collectors when it’s full which can decrease the amount of time it takes to collect full bins, and also lose less time if the collectors were to go to a bin, to find it empty.

By notifying the collectors when the bins are full, they can collect it quicker than if they were on a planned route, as one potential problem is that people can’t recycle because the bins are full, therefore they put their recycling in the waste bin instead. The smart bins system is able to be used for almost all types of recycling and general waste, which can again help stop people putting waste in the wrong bins because the others are full.

Keep Britain Tidy

Keep Britain Tidy tested out a ‘talking bin’ in London. The way it worked was that a motion sensor was put inside a bin which activated when it detected an item passing it, then ‘talking’ to the person who put something inside it, creating a rather comical interaction.

Again I feel this relates to the incentive to recycle, giving people an initiative to recycle, with the talking bin being placed in a popular area, passer by’s would hear the bin ‘talk’, and perhaps want to give it a go too, as you can see in the video it creates quite a reaction.

The only negative to this is that perhaps the novelty of the idea will fall off quite quickly as more and more people hear about it.

Every Can Counts

https://www.everycancounts.co.uk/blog-media/university-lincoln-making-recycling-easier-students/

Every Can Counts partnered up with the University of Lincoln to help increase the recycling rates of tin cans around the University campus by installing recycling bins around the campus. They also held an awareness day to help promote the bins and the need for recycling.

I have learnt that by increasing the opportunities to recycle, and making the recycling bins more visible, a lot of students and staff are more likely to actually recycle more. They introduced recycling bins at over 15 buildings, including 3 outdoor bin locations around campus, so with them being widespread around campus and easily accessible, the recycling rates increase.

A possible negative is that a lot of recycling comes down to accessibility, if it’s a chore to recycle a lot of people don’t seem to do it, me included. Yet, if it’s easy and hassle free to do, people will.