Where to place your bins
Location, location, location:
More likely than not, you have a limited budget to work with and therefore you’ll have to make informed decisions about where you decide to have recycling on-the-go to maximise impact. Here are some factors to consider when deciding where to put your bins.
Footfall:
Typically, we’d recommend introducing recycling to areas with high footfall to capture the most amount of material, where people are either eating or drinking on-the-go.
This is likely to be a busy high-street, outside a transport interchange or in a green space if you’re a local authority. Alternatively, it might be in a food court if you’re managing a shopping centre, at an office or a service station.
Shops:
Clearly visible litter bins are a good idea outside fast food outlets but we recommend avoiding placing recycling bins immediately outside, as whilst the packaging might be made from recyclable material, it is often contaminated with food when it comes to being disposed of.
Unless you’re slamming a double espresso, we’ve observed that people are unlikely to dispose of items from coffee shops immediately where they’re purchased, so placing a coffee cup recycling bin right outside a coffee shop is counterintuitively unlikely to capture cups from that store, so it’s worth considering where coffee drinkers tend to finish their caffeine-fix (e.g. at a nearby train station).
Litter hotspots:
Tackling littering and increasing recycling are close cousins but separate issues. We’d recommend not placing a recycling bin in an area that is already facing issues with fly tipping as this can be a magnet for further littering.
Bins need buddies:
If you’re not going to be installing bins with litter and recycling openings, then place the recycling bin as close to the litter bin as possible.
Standalone recycling bins will lead to contamination as many people will not visit two bins or may not notice there are two.
It was found in our #LeedsByExample campaign that recycling bins viewed first at an intersection such as the bottom of steps near the station or on a corner of the street, had higher contamination. It was found that contamination could be improved with repositioning, so the litter bin is seen first.
Make sure your bins are visible from afar, but don’t make the recycling the most prominent side or bin.
Read more about this under, 'Choosing your bins’.
Once you’re ready to decide where to place your bins, Google My Maps is a free tool that offers an easy way to quickly plot locations and share with other stakeholders.
Check out the Dublin #CircleCity map as an example.
