Newark and Sherwood District Council has teamed up with the LitterLotto® team for an initiative than promotes recycling through prizes

A new initiative is set to help everyone on how to recycle right, keep neighbourhoods clean, and reward residents for binning waste.

Newark and Sherwood District Council has teamed up with the LitterLotto® team, to launch a mobile app, that presents two key features for use at home or on the go, each offering its users a chance to win weekly prizes.

The first feature uses AI Waste technology to help residents determine what waste goes in which bin when they are at home.

The AtHome™ feature in the app allows users to take a photo of an item to see if it can be recycled or not.

The free app will then guide you on whether it’s recyclable and which bin should be put in.

Every correctly disposed item qualifies for local and national prize draws, with a guaranteed monthly £100 jackpot up for grabs for Newark and Sherwood residents as well as additional chances to win a weekly £1,000 national jackpot.

Plus, for each correct entry, users earn 'LitterLotto® Coins' which can be redeemed for prizes or extra jackpot entries in the Coin Store.

Councillor Emma Oldham, portfolio holder for Climate and Environment at Newark and Sherwood District Council said, “There really is nothing not to love about this new app. It’s completely free, it helps you answer the reoccurring household question of which bin to pop items in and you could win some cash prizes too which, especially at this time of year, is a huge bonus.

“We know recycling right is incredibly important, but it can be challenging at times to know which items can be recycled.

“Newark and Sherwood’s contamination rate for recycling bins is around 14%. This means that out of all of the waste that goes into our recycling bins currently, 14% is actually not recyclable.

“The risk with this is that if a recycling load has too much contamination, it could be rejected by the recycling facility. If this happens, the entire lorry load would be sent to incineration.

“We are committed to doing all we can to make recycling as simple and easy as possible to help improve our recycling rate and this app is just one easy way we can help.”

The second feature of the app will encourage users to pick up litter off the street when they are out and about.

Again, residents only have to photograph the litter as they place it in a public bin for a chance to win.

Volunteers participating in litter clean-ups can also snap photos of their collected items to enter prize draws, earning coins with every submission.

Councillor Oldham concludes: “We all want to live in a district we’re proud of, and this initiative encourages responsible recycling both at home and across our towns and villages.

“With added enforcement officers to address littering, we are tackling this issue from multiple angles, and I encourage everyone to download the app and join the movement.”

David Landsberg, founder and ceo of LitterLotto®, added: “We’re thrilled to partner with Newark and Sherwood District Council, offering a fun, engaging way to encourage recycling with the added excitement of jackpot prizes.”

The LitterLotto® app is free to download on the App Store and Google Play.