More information
Description
The project will engage the 200 000 Cascais inhabitants, as well as the over 1 500 000 yearly tourists and visitors. The project aims to address the low levels of recycling in Portugal through an innovative approach of management of single-use containers, bringing together, towards that end, an experienced team of retailers, collection services, research centers and companies in the waste sector. To this purpose, will be implemented a pilot scheme for the introduction incentives to recycling. The incentive scheme will be based on a "gamification" system, making use of applications which award users for depositing plastic and glass beverage containers and aluminium cans in RVMs with "city points".
Summary of project results
The iREC – Innovate Recycling project . Prior to the installation of machines located in main commercial surfaces of the concept, they were integrated with the Citypoints Cascais mobile application, allowing the exchange of points earned by return of PET plastic, glass and can beverage packaging. The execution of the activity plan, partially conditioned by the health context, complied with and allowed the adhesion of municipalities.
The project subdivided in several activities . At first Installation and programming of Reverse Vending Machines (RVM) , that consisted of configuring the database for the machines only accept the types of beverage packaging covered by the project (cans, PET and glass up to 2L), as well as dealing with the integration with CityPoints, to allow the exchange of points associated with deposits for prizes. then RVM Management where the filling and damage alert system via SMS and telephone allowed ensure a good response capacity on the part of the team to a almost uninterrupted operation of the equipment and thus achieve a equipment operation average of 94.4%. The route was reviewed several times throughout the project through analyzes continuous quantitative measurements of packaging collected by store. The Management and evaluation of the incentive system that Throughout the project, 32 incentives were acquired with funding from the project, totaling 9,940 prize units. Retailers also made themselves available to participate in the incentive system and offered prizes that appeal to users’ environmental responsibility: shopping bags reusable bags, cotton bags for fruits and vegetables and environmental guides. Most prizes could be purchased by users through survey at one of the customer service stores in Cascais, strategically spread across several parishes in the municipality. Regarding Communication and Promotion, the activities carried out in terms of communication and promotion were carried out according to the project schedule and budget and were objective of promoting iREC among citizens, increasing adherence and raising awareness regarding environmental and circular economy challenges. The final conference of the project was organized in May 2022, at the University of Nova SBE that brought together the main key actors of the future SDR and included with the online participation of representatives of foreign management entities of SDR (Finland, Iceland and Latvia).
Presented as main sets up its incentive system in the style of “gamification”, where users they were able to accumulate points (citypoints) on their app and then exchange them for prizes. - Number of RVMs installed throughout the project (15 machines)- Percentage of monthly hours in which the machines are in operation (94.39%)- Number of collections carried out over 18 months (6590)- Number of new services in the "Citypoints Cascais" application (42)- Number of reports produced (4)- Number of responses to the questionnaire (969)- Number of attendees at workshops and launch events (563)- Average number (monthly) of visits to the project''s website (2065)- Number of interactions with posts on social networks (7869)- Increase in registrations in the "Citypoints Cascais" application throughout the project (1557%)- Number of articles published and media reports (85)- Number of attendees at the international conference (111).