Calvia becomes first municipality in Mallorca to offer rewards for recycling

The municipality of Calvia, in the southwest of Mallorca, hopes to encourage people to do more for the environment with its new system of offering rewards for recycling.

Calvia has become the first municipality in Mallorca to set up a Return and Reward System (RRS) whereby residents who deposit cans and plastic drinks bottles for recycling will receive points which they can then donate to the Spanish Association Against Cancer; the organisation Sonrisa Médica, which is dedicated to bringing laughter to sick children in hospitals; or to planting trees to help fight against desertification.

The points are obtained by recycling using one of the 480 yellow containers that have been fitted with the technology or via the door-to-door system, said the Calvia Town Hall on August 16. To participate in this system, residents must download the free Reciclos application and scan the barcode on each can or bottle they wish to recycle. They then take their bag of containers to the yellow recycling bin in the street, deposit them and scan the QR code on the bin.

When using the door-to-door system, users simply scan each barcode, place the bag with the packaging at the entrance of their home or in the designated areas during the packaging collection hours, take a photo of the bag with the app and activate geolocation to identify the recycling point on a map.

The system has been designed by the non-profit environmental organisation Ecoembes. The manager of Ecoembes in the Balearic Islands, Xavier Balagué, said that this innovative system aims to help to meet the recycling targets set by the European Union, which “require a great effort on the part of society as a whole”. He also said that this solution helps to promote the circularity of packaging and “citizens can contribute to improving the environment through the rewards they get from recycling”.

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