RiVending, so in Parma, coffee cups aren't wasted. And it's back.

Mario is an employee of a small company in ParmaEvery morning he goes to his favorite vending machine and drinks two coffeeAlarmed by the emergency plastic bags, asks Luca, a colleague: «What happens to all the plastic cups and their stirrers?». Luca's response: «Here he takes care of it ReVending». This is a project that brought together the private company Flo, the local administration, and the municipal company Iren to give life to a process of plastic recycling and recovery very virtuous.

COFFEE CUPS RECYCLING

Specifically, the process begins using a special container with four large holes the same diameter as the glass and a smaller one for the stirrers. Inside each hole are special rigid tubes that facilitate stacking the glasses, thus reducing collection space. The contents end up in a bag of a different color than the ones in the container. collection and is collected together with the rest, to then be disposed of.

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PLASTIC RECYCLING

Once collected, the cups and stirrers are taken to the recycling centre and grouped together with the other glassesThe latter are crushed, ground, rinsed, dried and then taken back to the production factory, where the plastic granules obtained are reused to create new glasses, which will be used to supply the very machines from which they originate. This is a closed cycle, in compliance with the European Union's requests with a view to a real The circular economyThe RiVending project, in fact, allows you to skip a series of steps that are instead involved in the traditional process of separate plastic waste collection. Thus obtaining a direct recycling "Cup to cup": from glass to glass. The challenge now is to extend the project to the entire municipality of Parma and then to other municipalities in Italy.

RIVENDING PROJECT

The composition of the processed waste also helps this type of process. The glasses and stirrers, in fact, are made from 100% polystyrene, a material that has the characteristics to allow the beverage to be dispensed correctly inside the dispenser. Furthermore, they are easily recoverable and cleanable: coffee, milk, tea, or beverage residues are liquids that can be easily removed, without any kind of contamination, before mechanical recycling, which will revert them to plastic flakes or granules that will be reintroduced into production.

The project is competing for the 2019 edition of the Non Sprecare Award. To learn more about the competition and participate, go to here!

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