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

Mario is an employee of a small company in Parma . Every morning he goes to his favorite vending machine and drinks two coffees . Alarmed by the plastic emergency , he asks Luca, a colleague, "What happens to all the plastic cups and stirrers?" Luca's response: " RiVending takes care of that ." It's a project that brought together the private company Flo, the local government, and the municipal company Iren to create a very virtuous plastic recycling and recovery process.

COFFEE CUPS RECYCLING

Specifically, the process begins using a special container with four large holes the same diameter as the cup and a smaller one for the stirrers. Inside each hole are special rigid tubes that facilitate stacking the cups, thus reducing the collection space. The contents end up in a bag of a different color than the recycling bags and are collected along with the rest of the waste, before being disposed of.

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PLASTIC RECYCLING

Once collected, the cups and stirrers are taken to the recycling center and combined with the other cups . The latter are crushed, ground, rinsed, dried, and then returned to the production factory, where the resulting plastic granules are reused to create new cups , which will then be refilled into the vending machines from which they originated. This is a closed cycle, compliant with European Union requirements for a true circular economy . The RiVending project, in fact, bypasses a series of steps that are typically involved in the traditional separate plastic collection process, thus achieving direct "cup to cup" recycling. 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 aids this process. The cups and stirrers are made of 100% polystyrene , a material that has the characteristics to allow for proper dispensing of the beverage inside the dispenser. Furthermore, they are easily recoverable and cleanable: the coffee, milk, tea, or beverage residues are liquids that can be easily removed, without any kind of contamination, before mechanical recycling, which turns them into plastic flakes or granules that are 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 here!

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