Recycling behaviour in a London Borough: Results from large-scale household surveys

Abstract This paper summarises the results of two large-scale surveys of households in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in Greater London. The first, performed in 2000, covered 7500 households and the second, in 2004, 3250 households. Respondents provided information on their use of the local authority's kerbside recycling scheme and ‘bring’ sites for recycled materials. In 2000, approximately half of the householders surveyed via face-to-face interviews claimed that they used the kerbside scheme and/or bring sites on a regular basis. This proportion had grown to 70% in 2004. Details of this usage are outlined, including consideration of stated reasons for non-participation in waste recycling activities and reasons for variation in recycling behaviour across the borough. The context for this research is the establishment of national and local authority targets for the amount of household waste to be recycled. Given widespread concern that these targets are not being met, the research project not only evaluated the effectiveness of the existing opportunities for householders in Kensington and Chelsea but also promoted participation in recycling. One effect of this promotion was an observable increase in the amount of waste for recycling following both surveys. A key conclusion is that large-scale house-to-house publicity of local recycling opportunities has a demonstrable positive effect, but that for current targets to be met more householders need to be convinced of the need to recycle.