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UK Retailer Racks Up Over 300,000 Recycled Bottles With Reverse Vending Machine Trial

by Casha Doemland on 01/03/2019 | 2 Minute Read

Instead of inserting your coins or bills into a machine to receive your beverages or snacks, UK supermarket Iceland opted to flip the script and give you an incentive to recycling your plastic with the creation of their own reverse vending machine.

All you have to do is insert the bottle, bottom first, into the machine, and watch as each bottle tallies up £0.10.  Once all the plastic bottles are recycled, click the green receive button on the bottom of the screen to receive your in-store voucher.  Just like that, you've got credit towards your next purchase.

The trial for the reserve vending machines began six months ago in Musselburgh, Scotland, Mold, Wales and Wolverhampton, with a sum of 300,000 plus plastic bottles recycled.

The inspiration for the machine arose from England's announcement of the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) in early 2018 as a way to counter plastic, glass and metal waste.

“It is absolutely vital we act now to tackle this threat and curb the millions of plastic bottles a day that go unrecycled. We have already banned harmful microbeads and cut plastic bag use, and now we want to take action on plastic bottles to help clean up our oceans," says environment secretary Michael Gove

Guess what? Companies and retailers in England have been for the last year. On top of introducing this revolutionary reverse vending machine to its stores, Iceland has also vowed to eliminated plastic packaging for all their brand products by 2023.

Tesco, Morrisonsand corporate offices across England have also introduced reserve vending machines to their stores and buildings throughout the last year.

While each machine may offer different incentives, the end goal remains the same, eliminate single-use plastic waste by making recycling easier for consumers.

via: FoodBev