Rewarding recycling: Successful project in Higueruelas

The Higueruelas City Council, in collaboration with Smart To People and Candam Tech, has carried out an innovative recycling contest, pioneer in the Valencian Community. From November 23 to December 18, the town held a campaign that rewards the citizens most committed to recycling.

The contest focused on encouraging recycling habits and recognizing the effort of citizens in separating their waste correctly. The development of this was possible thanks to Recysmart technology, which converts urban containers into intelligent ones, allowing the establishment of different recycling schemes such as: reward systems (RAYT), Pay as you Throw (PAYT) or deposit systems (SDDR).

This project, which was possible thanks to the EOI’s Activa Startups program and financed by European Next Generation funds, has had a phenomenal response from the community. The results of this campaign reflect the citizens’ commitment to the environment and the circular economy.

Thanks to the involvement of the citizens of Higueruelas, a total of 4.691 beverage containers were recycled in these 4 weeks of the campaign. The 84% of the packaging, were recovered through the yellow bin, the remaining 16% were glass packaging deposited in the green bin.

In addition, prizes were awarded to the citizens most committed to recycling. The winners were recognized for their efforts in favor of the environment and received rewards such as restaurant vouchers and gastronomic products.

During the awards ceremony Melanio Esteban, mayor of Higueruelas, thanked the citizens

“for their involvement in caring for the environment when it comes to making a correct separation of waste so that these can have a second life”

and highlighted

“the importance of such campaigns to improve the recycling habits of the population”.

These local efforts are aligned with European sustainability policies, contributing to the achievement of the objectives set by the European Commission and promoting a positive change towards the circular economy and the fight against climate change.

The project not only succeeded in raising environmental awareness, but also demonstrated the improvement in the packaging recovery rate in Higueruelas thanks to the implementation of RecySmart technology.