UK students paid to recycle

Students at a UK agricultural college are being paid to recycle plastic bottles and cans.

Sparsholt College, Winchester, is the first British organisation to install a reverse vending machine.

The machine issues a voucher worth £0.05 for each item recycled. Vouchers can be used towards snacks and other goodies in the college’s shop, restaurant and bar.

In its first week of operation, the machine collected 1,000 cans and 2,000 plastic bottles.

Tesco is set to trial a similar scheme in nine Scottish stores. Customers recycling at the stores will be awarded club card points for each item recycled.

Reverse vending machines are popular in Europe.

In some countries - such as Sweden - consumers are charged a premium for items sold in cans or plastic bottles.

The premium is returned only when the packaging is placed into a reverse vending machine.

According to the Reverse Vending Corporation, the machines can increase the recycling rate to 65%.

With the UK’s current recycling rate barely nudging past 35%, schemes such as this can only be a good thing.

Whether or not they’ll manage to survive the current economic climate is another matter.