David Brinson, LB Lewisham. Lewisham is an inner London Borough Households 117,500 Population is 265,500 Unitary Authority Weekly Refuse & Recycling Service.

David Brinson, LB Lewisham

Lewisham is an inner London Borough

Households 117,500

Population is 265,500

Unitary Authority

Weekly Refuse & Recycling Service

Household refuse is sent to SELCHP, New Cross

Recycling sent to Bywaters MRF, Bow

But most importantly –

Recycling is not compulsory

In 2009 Lewisham was the first local authority in the country to offer a free kerbside mattress collection

Why did we do this?

Every month over 1000 mattresses were flytipped on the streets of Lewisham

All of which went to landfill, as SELCHP does not accept mattresses

August 2009 -The trial scheme

Mattress recycling stickers

Put out on normal collection day

Refuse crews inform back office

Flytipping crew remove within 48 hours

Matt UK, New Cross to be recycled

Up to 90% of mattress can be recycled

Initial Outcomes

Very positive response from residents and press

Thousands of mattresses recycled

Mattress flytipping rapidly decreased

But… the success of scheme hinged on the refuse crews

◦ Not all mattresses were being collected on time◦ And this led to some complaints from unhappy residents

The permanent service

January 2010

Improvements needed

The scheme achieves 100% diversion from landfill

So successful we now have a dedicated crew collecting mattress

Aims for WEEE Week 2011

Increase awareness of WEEE

Promote our own WEEE Recycling Banks

Reduce the amount of electrical items being put into household refuse & recycling bins

How we met our aims

Funding from Repic

We set up mobile WEEE recycling points

We visited school assemblies

Spoke to over 1000 children in 7 schools

We collected nearly 2 tonnes of WEEE in the Week

3 local newspapers and Material Recycling Week each covered WEEE Man

WEEE Man is now a permanent part of Lewisham’s recycling team!

A scheme used to engage children throughout the Borough

We now have 8 Recycling Super Heroes

The Super Heroeshelp promote new recycling schemes and activities in the Borough

January 2010 Recycle blog goes live To date over 43,500

Early 2011 Twitter Account goes live

To date over 800 followers

Social Media allows us to immediately promote events andcomment on stories. More importantly we are not constrained by print deadlines and gives us autonomy over ourcommunications.

Home composting is a key part of Lewisham’s Waste Reduction Strategy

Any resident is able to order a free compost bin

Mr. Compost attends community events and road shows to promote this

Since 2010 over 3000 compost bins issued

Over 200 residents attended workshops

Questions?