A new ‘litter lotto’ helps to keep communities clean

The new app incentivises people to pick up and bin litter

Spotted: A new, free-to-enter monthly prize draw rewards people for binning litter. Using the free LitterLotto app, participants take a photo of every piece of rubbish they pick up and bin. Each photo equates to an entry into the monthly jackpot draw, along with a range of other, smaller prizes. The monthly jackpot in the UK was recently doubled to £10,000 per month.

Free to download from both the Apple and Google app stores, LitterLotto debuted in Denmark earlier in 2021. Available in other countries as well, the size of cash prizes vary depending on location.

The company provides guidelines for photos, requiring the top of the bin, the user’s hand and the piece of litter all to be visible in order to be eligible for an entry in the draw. Every single item of rubbish counts, including cigarette butts, with the company highlighting the more than four trillion that are dropped on the ground each year worldwide. Users of the app can also earn extra entries in the draw by recommending friends and family. And if someone a user recommended wins the jackpot, the initial person also wins a prize.

Gamification is one of the more creative means of encouraging people to undertake difficult or unpleasant tasks. Previous examples spotted by Springwise include a running app to encourage people to exercise, and a waste management system that aims to improve working conditions and increase the accuracy of its recycling.