Recycling in Action: Rewarding recycling

Our last series on Rethinking Recycling showed that beverage cartons are fully recyclable and explored the benefits of recycling. In this series on Recycling in Action, we take a closer look at some of the innovative models we’re creating to boost recycling rates.

We’re showcasing examples from Brazil, a country that’s led the way with early adoption of regulations that demand a strong focus on recycling from municipalities and companies. We’ve used this as an opportunity to partner with cities, customers and others to create and test innovative models that can be used to help increase recycling across the country and beyond.

In the city of Curitiba, SIG has teamed up with social enterprise so+ma to introduce a program that aims to reinvent the way people think about waste and change their behavior to make recycling routine.

The program is doing this by offering them real rewards for recycling their used packaging. It’s called so+ma Vantagens, which literally means ‘so+ma Benefits’. And the benefits are certainly clear – for people and planet.

Watch the video to see how so+ma Vantagens is transforming attitudes to recycling.

Turning waste into everyday essentials

SIG’s so+ma partnership is encouraging recycling by turning waste into rewards for communities. The premise is simple: collect used packaging, bring it to the so+ma house drop point and earn reward points.

Points are credited onto a so+ma Vantagens reward card. For some, this is the first ‘credit card’ they’ve ever had. They can use the credit to buy food products or pay for useful services.
“I redeem my so+ma points mostly for wheat flour, vegetable oil and sugar,” says Ceiça, a baker. “It’s a saving to my business and this helps me a lot.”

People can also put their points towards training courses to learn new skills – from computer skills to childcare – that can help them get jobs.
“We believe recyclable things are waste, but actually they are not,” says Cristiane. “so+ma gave me a training course for free and I’m very happy.”

Anyone who doesn’t need these things themselves can choose to pass their rewards on to others.
“I redeem my points for food like rice, beans and vegetable oil,” says Elenir Maria. “I give them to the community church.”

More than 380 families have signed up to the reward scheme so far. In the first year, they have made nearly 900 exchanges of waste for rewards.
With incentives like this, why not recycle?

Clearer streets, cleaner planet

Communities don’t just benefit from the rewards, so+ma is also helping to make the city a nicer place to live. The pilot began in Curitiba just over a year ago and litter is disappearing from the streets.

“Before so+ma, every street here was clogged and full of waste,” says Maria. “But now, it is not.”
Already, over 81 tonnes of used beverage cartons and other waste packaging have been collected for recycling. This cuts environmental impacts by diverting waste from landfill.

“It helps us take waste off the streets and keeps it out of the environment,” says Andrei. “It’s good for everyone.”

Once recycled, the materials can be used to make new products, reducing the impact from extracting and processing virgin materials.
The waste collected so far has helped to avoid an estimated 570 tonnes of CO2 emissions. That’s the equivalent of taking 120 cars off the road for a year.

Expanding the benefits

All these benefits are from one pilot in one city. We’ve shown the model works. Now we’re exploring ways to expand our partnership with so+ma – starting with two new drop points in Curitiba to enable more communities to benefit.

SIG’s so+ma partnership is tackling one of the biggest hurdles to increasing recycling rates – changing consumer attitudes to see the value in recycling waste.

“In the old days, we used to throw everything mixed in the garbage,” says Fernando. “We don’t anymore.”
Lack of local infrastructure for physically collecting and recycling waste is another obstacle. Find out how SIG is bringing an innovative solution to Brazilian municipalities in our next blog on Recycling in Action.