Everyone a winner

Lottery prizes for recyclers show the power of positive incentives Q: Why do Norwegians recycle drinks cartons?
A: Because they put their phone numbers on them. It’s not a joke, it’s one way of saving the planet. One of 16 schemes, to be precise, that the National Consumer Council (NCC) has identified around the world as models for making consumer behaviour more sustainable. Apparently this one was responsible for a 35% increase in recycling rates. To make themselves eligible for a recycling lottery prize, Norwegians put six drinks cartons inside a seventh to form a ‘cube’ and then write their name and contact number on it. Whoever’s cube is drawn from a metaphorical hat gets a cut of the annual prize fund of £162,000 (two million kroner). “It seems such a simple, imaginative way of enthusing people about going green while having good fun at the same time,” says Diane Gaston from the NCC. The organisation’s research goes on to speculate whether a similar scheme here might need a much fatter payout, to fire the enthusiasm of us Brits, blasé as we now are about Lottery millionaires. It ends up, however, with some fighting talk about making recycling a ‘national obsession’ by applying something on similar lines to problem waste streams such as spent batteries. Landfill taxes or variable waste charges, it suggests, could be used to contribute to the prize fund. - Elaine Mills

20 June 2005

Elaine Mills