Comments on: Show Us A Better Way winner: Can I Recycle It?

By: Peter W

Peter W — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:10:31 +0000

Alerted Radio 4’s pm programme about the issue see http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ipm/2008/11/keeping_an_eye_on_the_competit.shtml

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:36:26 +0000

@Gary: But there *is* an organisation that knows exactly where all the postboxes are. Can you guess who it is?

(Hint: its name is an anagram of ‘rodnance suvrey’…)

By: paul canning

paul canning — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:54:20 +0000

This has been dropped.

From Public Sector Forums:

PSF’s added value: We can today exclusively report the planned ‘Can I Recycle It’ website has now – for want of a better phrase – been dumped.

In a supreme example of common sense winning the day, the Government now plans to use the prize fund cash to work with Recycle Now to raise its public profile.

The Cabinet Office told PSF today the competition judges had been unaware RecycleNow existed, despite having looked ‘long and hard’ for similar initiatives.

“Searches for similar ideas did not throw up any similar sites and nobody mentioned it in the comments section of SUABW”, said a spokesperson.

“The Power of Information Review was very clear about not duplicating sites so we won’t be building a whole new one”, they added. “The competition was always about ideas, and this is an idea that visitors and judges agreed had legs. As it was already out there we’ll be working with them to make it more successful, providing the service the person who suggested the idea wanted.”

The current plan is expected to include search engine optimisation, such as making Recycle Now more prominent in Google search results, given the judges couldn’t find it in the first place. Thus, needless duplication has been avoided, an existing website providing a useful service wins further support and a potential government PR disaster becomes a triumph for all concerned. Can we have more of this, please?

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:16:54 +0000

Agreed. Some of the “winning” entries were poorly researched. “Where’s my nearest post box” can’t work either because the Royal Mail refuse to disclose that data and claim they don’t keep exact locations on file. Some weight should have been given to the registered public votes and comments made when it was put to the public to pick a shortlist of winners. Granted the anonymous votes couldn’t be trusted but the registered votes and comments should not have been so readily disregarded.

By: DMN

DMN — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:15:59 +0000

I thought about recycle now when I heard about this award – and my own councils website too:

http://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=b1000037

It seems like a waste to have awarded this prize to a duplicate service when some of the other ideas were uniquely useful. Hey ho its only public money…

By: Tom Page

Tom Page — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:04:01 +0000

Yes – I’ve used http://www.recyclenow.com many times – I don’t understand how this project is any different!

By: Gerv

Gerv — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:27:47 +0000

As comments on the post on the Guardian website indicate, this seems to already exist at http://www.recyclenow.com/ … Does that mean you need to re-award the prize?