HOPES of increasing recycling opportunities for people who live in flats in Bexley, have been given a boost by the London Waste and Recycling Board.

It has given the borough two grants totalling nearly £250,000 to enable it to provide better facilities and incentives for flat dwellers to recycle more of their household rubbish.

Bexley already recycles more than any other London borough, with household waste recycling reaching around 52 per cent.

But to push up rates even further, people living in flats need to become more involved.

The first grant of £108,750 will launch Local Green Points’ first London scheme.

It will involve around 2,000 homes in Thamesmead and is aimed at rewarding people who increase their recycling efforts.

Their rubbish will be weighed regularly and those people who recycle the most or whose recycling rates have improved the most, will receive Green Points.

The points can be exchanged for goods and services for themselves, or people can donate them to community projects.

Graham Simmonds, co-founder of Local Green Points says surveys have shown 34 per cent of Bexley people would donate their points, while 42 per cent would share them.

He added: “At Local Green Points we are taking an innovative approach to waste and community support, so it is highly appropriate we are working with Bexley because it is a beacon council which puts innovation at the heart of everything it does.”

A start date for the scheme and what goods and services will be involved, have still to be finalised.

A second grant of £106,000 will provide specialist containers to enable 10,000 Bexley flat dwellers to recycle their food waste.

The containers will be emptied as part of the existing weekly food and garden waste collections.

It is hoped this will help Bexley reach its 55 per cent recycling target by 2014.