If you live in Foresthall Park you could be in line for a £1,000 prize from September as part of efforts to improve food recycling across Uttlesford.
Currently, the average contents of a general rubbish bin in Uttlesford consists 39% of food.
To get more leftovers into food caddies and out of general waste bins, Uttlesford District Council has teamed up with Love Essex to launch a Food Recycling Prize Draw in two places in Uttlesford.
One is Flitch Green near Dunmow, and the other includes 600 households at Foresthall Park.
Both have been chosen, not because their food recycling rates are any worse than other areas in the district, but because they offer clear areas from which the project’s impact can be measured.
Recycling Starter Packs
From today until Friday, a team from Uttlesford District Council will be spreading out across Foresthall Park hand-delivering letters about the project to households.
The letters will encourage residents to order a FREE food recycling starter pack from UDC’s website.
The pack will consist of an internal food caddy, an external food caddy and a roll of decomposable bin liners.
The households included in the pilot project at Foresthall Park will get a second letter at the start of September letting them know the prize draw is underway.
How to enter
All that the households on Foresthall Park need to do is put their outdoor caddies out for collection on their food recycling day.
By using the incentive of a cash prize, organisers of the pilot project seek to encourage those with less motivation to get involved and start recycling their food.
The competition will only involve people living in houses, and not flats, on Forest Hall.
Choosing winners
Organisers will use a randomiser to select a collection week in September when the draw is live.
The team will then randomise the households involved in this pilot.
The first house chosen by the randomiser will be visited by the team and if a caddy is correctly placed outside, they will receive a letter notifying them they have won the top prize.
If this house has not placed a caddy out, the team will move onto the next house in the randomised list.
Prizes and vouchers
One household has the chance to win £1,000.
Ten other households also have the chance to win a runners-up prize of their choice, worth up to £100. These include:
All prizes have been sponsored by N+P from their social value fund.
Prize winners will be informed by hand-delivered letters in the week starting 29th September.
Project goals
It’s hoped the incentive of a prize draw will increase food recycling tonnages by 5% in both target areas over the duration of the intervention. The project would also strive to increase food waste recycling participation while the project is underway.
For more information
Please direct any questions to love.essex@essex.gov.uk or Uttlesford District Council at wasteaware@uttlesford.gov.uk
2 thoughts on “Food recycling prizes for Foresthall households”
Alison Butterworth
Why are flats not included if we have individual bins? This is not an inclusive incentive
Council Administrator
“The prize draw is open to a small sample of households in Uttlesford. This is because it is a pilot project and will test whether a prize draw can help to encourage food recycling. If this pilot is successful, the prize draw may be scaled-up to other areas in Essex.” This is a possible explanation pulled from the Love Essex website (https://rb.gy/07jji8). Perhaps it will be expanded to occupants of flats if the scheme gets passed the pilot stage.