London Borough of Croydon

Project description D07

The London Borough of Croydon is one of the leading “green” boroughs in a city that has made a collective and substantial commitment to sustainable growth and reduction of carbon emissions. This project deals directly with one of the most accessible parts of a commitment to the environment, recycling by individual citizens. Although the liaison has worked with WPI teams in the past, the Borough itself is a new WPI project sponsor.

Organisation name and address

Environment and Sustainability Team

Taberner House

Park Lane

Croydon CR0 3BT

Proposer's name and contact information

Eddy Taylor

Environment and Sustainability Team Manager

+44 (0) 20 8760 5791

eddy.taylor@croydon.gov.uk

Problem statement, objectives, and background

The Borough of Croydon seeks to increase participation in its recycling programs. One place to begin is assessing and getting a good understanding of levels of recycling participation by residents in a certain part of the borough; there is already some data on participation, complaints from residents, what the recycling service is there to collect, and so on. That initial assessment would require developing a door-to-door survey which is designed to (i) increase participation, (ii) provide useful information about why people don't recycle, and (iii) assess the effectiveness of previous information in informing residents about our recycling services.

A second survey should re-assess participation rates to learn the effectiveness of the first survey and other interventions its analysis suggested. We would expect a full final report, including presentation of how the survey was conducted, an assessment of its effectiveness in increasing recycling, and recommendations on other steps the council can take to increase recycling participation rates.

We have done a similar exercise in a different part of the borough and can provide information on how this was done, which the students can adapt. It will be very interesting to see what difference young, enthusiastic, personable American accents makes to the effectiveness of the door-knocking surveying!