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 officially started on September 1, 2020 and ended on June 30, 2022. Due to the exceptional situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a delay initial start-up of Reverse Vending Machines (RVMs), so it was requested an extension of the project by two months (it was initially planned will end on 04/30/2022). The operation began in January 2021 the day before of the State of Emergency. 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, whose packaging deposits amounted to 1,381,525 packages, corresponding to 120.13 tons of waste. All project activities were completed, that is, 100% carried out. We will now present the main details of completing each of the activities.
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 team ensured the collection of packaging in stores, totaling 6,590 collections throughout the project, for a total of 1,381,525 packages (see Table 2). For ensure greater efficiency in the use of resources (fuel, HR, emissions CO2, etc.), 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). A press release was also published in 7 online magazines/newspapers and posts on social networks across the municipality.
It is considered that the project had a good performance overall, constituting a pilot that serves as an example for other projects of its kind. 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 RVM installed throughout the project (15 machines); Percentage of hours per month that 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 people present at workshops and launch events (563); Average number (monthly) of visits to the project website (2065); Number of interactions with publications on social networks (7869); Increase in registrations in the “Citypoints Cascais” application throughout the project(1557%); Number of published articles and reports in social media (85); Number of attendees at the international conference (111).