Incentives for waste separation: where to find them

Drop off a bottle or can and receive 3 cents off your groceries or 5 cents off your gas. Plus, eco-bonuses for free coffee and shopping at local stores.

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incentives for separate waste collection, incentive bins

This is one of the best practices that works best to support the spread of separate waste collection and enable proper waste disposal: rewarding citizens who, in exchange for proper disposal and in the right places, receive, for example, shopping vouchers.

Incentive-based bins are proliferating in Italy, as are online maps to help you locate them in your area. In exchange for proper waste separation, you receive discounts on groceries, gas vouchers, and bonuses that can be spent at participating retailers, including pizzerias, restaurants, and museums.

Smart bins

In NaplesFor example, a special bin has just been installed at the MD supermarket in Piazza Nazionale: for every bottle or can returned, customers receive 3 cents off their groceries or 5 cents off gasoline. In Portici, again in the Campania capital, an incentive bin has been installed inside the CNR building, offering all employees discounts on grocery shopping.

In Rome's Colli Aniene neighborhood, a recycler offers bonuses ranging from a coffee to the cost of a building permit. In Rome's Casal de' Pazzi neighborhood, an eco-bonus machine has been installed that offers discounts at local market outlets.

And in Siena, at the Portasiena shopping center, by returning PET bottles you can receive coupons equivalent to a discount of up to 30 percent.

But here are the most interesting sites where you can find maps of the incentivized bins:

  • Garby
  • Ecopoints
  • EcoLife Italy
  • Green Connection
  • Eurven

Coupons

The fashion and cosmetics industries have also been moving toward recycling and waste sorting for some time, encouraging consumers to avoid wasting the items they want to discard. Several companies, including the most famous brands, offer the following opportunity: those who return old clothing receive a discount on the new one they purchase. In the case of cosmetics, for every number of empty jars or tubes returned, a new product is received free. The companies that encourage the return of used clothing and used cosmetics are not charities, but businesses that profit from this activity by giving the recovered products a new lease of life, in accordance with the rules of theThe circular economyAnd if in New York there is even a fashion week, recycling, The Refashion week, in Italy there are associations, such as Refashion Aps from Svignano sul Rubicone who carry out projects for the recovery of used clothes diverted from landfills.

Incentives in supermarkets

When you enter a supermarket, before you even fill your cart with your groceries, check whether you can save money by giving away waste, especially plastic. Simply make sure the store you choose participates in one of the points-gathering campaigns, which provide discounts on your shopping, and you're all set.

The number of participating chains is growing, thanks to the number of eco-compactors, machines that collect bottles and plastic and recharge the Eurven and Garby loyalty cards. At the Conad and Sisa chains, for example, there's a 5 percent discount on 10 percent of your purchase for every eco point earned. At Natura Sì organic supermarkets, for every 20 items recycled, you receive a €1 discount on a purchase of at least €20. And Carrefour supermarkets offer a €5 cent discount for every bottle recycled. In Monselice, in the province of Padua, Eurven, once again with 2Pay, is offering a "Cash for Trash" formula: for every bottle or can recycled using the dedicated compactor, you receive one euro cent.

If you then refuel your car at Q8 Easy pumps, the discount is 60 cents for every 10 ecopoints collected: the minimum purchase must be 30 euros.

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