App encourages consumers to recycle by offering rewards

Mobile app aims to incentivize people to recycle ‘single use’ plastic bottles and aluminium cans.

Living so precariously, it is unsurprising that innovation has focused on environmental issues, and how to do better by the planet. We have already seen numerous initiatives, specifically those which seek to encourage consumers to recycle. For example, the beer bottle which asks everybody to help combat climate change, and the kiosk machine which pays people who deposit their old batteries. RecycleToCoin uses the same principle, rewarding people for their eco-friendly actions, but in a new way.

RecycleToCoin has a blockchain-based app in association with the Global Plastic Offset Scheme, which funds global plastic recycling projects, and aims to incentivize recycling. The app rewards users with digital currency and eGift cards when they take bottles and cans to be recycled at a participating collection point. Staff at the collection point will present customers with a QR code to be scanned, this then sends BCDC tokens to their mobile, which can be exchanged for one of the following: Bitcoin, Ether an eGift card from GiftPay, or they can donate to Plastic Bank, to help fight poverty and plastic pollution on a global scale. The scheme went live in the UK in October. RecycleToCoin is partnered with GiftPay and Plastic Bank, in addition to the participating charities and stores who host collection points.

It is undeniable that there is great potential in finding new unique ways to protect the environment. How else could consumers be encouraged to act in an environmentally-friendly way? Could this reward scheme be applied to other aspects of life to widen its effect?