Keep Britain Tidy and Milton Keynes Council are working together to tackle recycling contamination

Keep Britain Tidy has begun work with Milton Keynes Council to help residents recycle correctly and drive down contamination. The work forms part of our new Contamination Reduction Programme, in response to an issue that costs local authorities millions of pounds a year.

The work follows Milton Keynes Council’s participation in research, carried out by our Centre for Social Innovation, which investigated why we continue to contaminate our kerbside recycling by lifting the lid and looking ‘Inside the Head of the Contaminator’ . Using insights from the research, we developed an innovative programme of behavioural interventions and support to tackle contamination in Milton Keynes, which will be fully evaluated to give the Council robust evidence about what works.   

The programme of work will consist of:

• Website content review which will update the waste and recycling information available on the Milton Keynes Council website using the latest research and wider behavioural insights including using various nudges. 

• Direct feedback to households who are contaminating their recycling in pilot areas.

• A new communication delivered to households in pilot areas aiming to disrupt current contamination behaviours, particularly in groups who already think they are recycling correctly. 

• Following development of our campaign to tackle nappy contamination , a mobilised version of the campaign across Milton Keynes.

Councillor Emily Darlington, Cabinet Member for Public Realm at Milton Keynes Council said:”

“We know that more and more people in Milton Keynes are committed to recycling and are trying to get it right, but every week we see a lot of things in the clear recycling sacks that shouldn’t be there, like dirty nappies, glass bottles, food waste, and old clothes. Dealing with things that cannot be recycled costs Milton Keynes Council hundreds of thousands pounds per year. That’s money that could be better spent to help local people. We are very pleased to be working with Keep Britain Tidy to help residents recycle correctly.” 

If you would like to find out more about the support we can offer to better understand and address your contamination issues, please get in touch by emailing enquiries@keepbritaintidy.org

If you are interested in learning about the results of the Contamination Reduction Programme and other waste-related projects from the Keep Britain Tidy team please sign up to our newsletter .