Whitehead NI Pilot
The Whitehead Pilot in Northern Ireland was the World’s First Public Digital DRS Trial. The pilot was run in collaboration with Bryson Recycling and Mid and East Antrim Borough Council, with proud support from Britvic Ireland, PepsiCo and Encirc.
Queen’s University Belfast undertook an independent assessment of the pilot, using qual and quant methods to truly get under the skin of consumer attitudes and engagement. We presented these results in a recent webinar which saw over 100 attendees from governments and organisations around the world.
Below is a snapshot of the results…
85%
Find it easy to recycle at home
only 5% would prefer to use an RVM instead of a digital DRS
13-80 yr olds
took part in the trial
the majority found the re-universe (previously Reward4Waste) app easy / very easy to download and use
The amount of people who would prefer to recycle at home is 70%
21p is the level of deposit that would incentivise use of digital DRS
vs 30p for a conventional RVM DRS model
87%
say they would like the DRS to extend to all plastic waste
research has shown significant preference towards digital DRS
86%
are concerned over the lack of convenience a conventional RVM model would bring
Pilot details
- Trial run in collaboration with Bryson Recycling and Mid and East Antrim Borough Council
- With proud support from Britvic Ireland, PepsiCo and Encirc
- Trial run in Whitehead, Northern Ireland. Self contained town
- 2000 households
- No levy placed on participating items – only reward
- Participating items: plastic drinks bottles including soft drinks and HDPE milk, drinks cans and glass
- Participating items had unique stickers and could be purchased from 1 x local SPAR retailer
- Kerbside recycling (weekly collections) + 4 x out of home (OOH) bins in litter hotspots
- Residents downloaded app, purchased items from store, scanned the unique code on their home recycling box or out of home bins, and scanned the unique code on their empty drinks containers to register a recycle and redeem instant reward points
Trial Collaborators and Supporters









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Recycling behaviour?
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