Recycling Lottery

Every second grader can tell you how important recycling is, and they can probably also tell you exactly how the waste needs to be separated in order to recycle effectively. That’s why I was more than surprised when I tried to set up the recycling service for the new house my wife and I recently moved into; when I called the trash company, they couldn’t tell me what day of the week my recycling day was. First of all, I thought that was fairly disturbing, but when they told me how they usually determine your day, I was appalled (they determine your day by finding out when your neighbors’ pick ups are scheduled, which means the trash company couldn’t find a neighbor in my area who recycled). If all second graders know about recycling, why don’t their parents?

We need more inventions like this fantastic new idea to help make recycling both more fun and more ubiquitous, a little something to encourage adults to get in the game, so to speak.

thanks to TreeHugger.com

Meet: Recycling lottery reverse vending machines. Tomra Systems, along with Coca-cola, have developed a recycling machine where when you properly recycle a can or bottle, you are rewarded with a chance at winning a prize. This project has been quite successful in Germany, and now Dunkin’ Donuts, of all people, have brought this idea to the US.

In the past, many folks have tried a plethora of ways to make recycling more appealing, including placing deposits on bottles and cans, fun bin designs and categorized bins with waste stream specific slots. These ideas have come and gone without a huge impact on consumers… until now: meet the Las Vegas of recycling efforts: a lottery system where one out of a hundred participants is a winner (winner, winner, chicken dinner!).

These machines take no more time or effort than the previous ideas, but by making the possible reward much larger (free event tickets or other prizes) recycling become much more appealing. I know… maybe we shouldn’t need any more incentive to recycle, but face it, when was the last time that you threw out a coke can because it was just easier.

Similar ideas promote throwing away trash as well.

This “bottomless” trash can is designed to make it a little more interesting to throw something away, not just on the ground, but in the trash. Scaling this idea up would not be as easy as the recycling lotto, just because a noisy trash can would get old fast, but these types of creative solutions are a really positive way to reduce the waste we produce.

At first glance, both of these ideas would seem to be costly for the companies implementing them, but by encouraging people to pick up their own trash and put it in the right place, a significant amount of money is saved. In the Dunkin’ Donuts center, where they have installed two of these machines, the waste hauling costs are estimated to be reduced by $1400 a month and the “green” advertizing benefits are certain to be much more than that for both Coke and Dunkin’ Donuts. I say good for them though, if companies really are willing to go green, (even if it saves them money) then I am certainly more inclined to buy their products (and maybe I’ll win a little something in the mix! You may say shooting to win the lottery is a gamble, but I’m an optimist!).