Evergreen Recycle: “You recycle, I reward you”
What can we do to make our economy more circular? We can start from the separate collection of waste, which allows to reinsert the materials collected in a new production process as secondary raw materials. According to Circle Economy’s Circularity Gap Report, the current percentage rate, calculated as the ratio between recycled materials and the total amount used as input in production processes, is only 9.1%. There is still a lot to do. But local initiatives, aiming at involving citizens in an active way to raise awareness on the topic, are more and more frequent. This is where Evergreen Recycle, an Italian company founded in 2015, started up. It provides incentivizing waste compactors, which directly reward citizens with discounts to be used in local businesses or, in some municipalities, even with discount on the waste tax. How does it work? The steps are simple. Citizens insert the differentiated waste, plastic for example, in the compactor, they identify themselves through the social security number and they immediately receive a printed discount coupon or other forms of incentive. Furthermore, each device provides data on the CO2 emissions savings obtained. The initiative “You recycle, I reward you”, linked to the incentivizing eco-compactors, is already active in several Italian municipalities. In each case an ecosystem of collaboration has been created among local administrators, local businesses and citizens attentive to the theme of circular economy, with very interesting and performing results.
This post is also available in: Italian
