At #ClosetheGlassLoop, we recognize the importance of showcasing case studies and best practices as essential tools for knowledge sharing and growth in the field of glass collection for recycling. These case studies offer invaluable lessons from real-world experiences, enabling others to apply these insights to their own initiatives.
One notable case study we would like to highlight is the Digi-Cycle project, presented by its Managing Director, Felix Badura. Digi-Cycle is a digital information and incentive system designed to increase recycling rates. Through the app, users receive guidance on how to correctly dispose of packaging and recycle valuable materials. By simply scanning a barcode, the Digi-Cycle Recycling Guide provides region-specific instructions for proper disposal, ensuring effective recycling. This simple action yields significant environmental benefits.
To learn more about this innovative app, check out the video, and visit the Digi-Cycle website: https://www.digi-cycle.at/en/
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Established in June 2020, Close The Glass Loop is a multi-stakeholder initiative bringing together the entire glass packaging circular economy value chain, represented by 14 European associations and 13 national platforms.
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https://www.linkedin.com/company/close-the-glass-loop/
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[Music] you can only recycle what you’re actually collecting and uh that is at the beginning when we were founding dig cycle back in 2022 was our main thought uh what is an efficient way to increase collection rates using the means that digitization is now offering to do this in a more efficient way so to give you a bit uh of a background digic cycle was established together from ARA and saamaka as a joint venture so meaning by a waste management firm and uh the leading collection and recycling system in Austria with this background we’ve been looking at what are the main barriers to why people right now are not Recycling and how we can use digital tools to answer these obstacles and when you look at glass for instance uh then there are sometimes complex products uh like for instance deodorant or perfums where people aren’t sure since it’s not only composed of glass uh whether this belongs to the glass collection or somewhere else so in these cases uh whenever people aren’t sure they often consider the residual waste as the safest exit for their products and this this is where adding more knowledge on how to recycle and especially when you’re out of home where to recycle was at the beginning of the development of a recycling guide that we have established uh during the last years so how does it work you’re actually scanning the barcode of a product and for this product based on your geolocation you will see how this product is correctly disposed of and later on recycled in your area and uh when you are not sure where the nearest bin is located you can just click on one of the collection fractions and you will see the locations and your vicinity on where you can actually dispose of your items and we are proposing this together with leading fmcg Brands and retailers and at the moment uh in our guide which is uh yet focused on Austria we are covering approximately 50,000 was collection sites with more than 20,000 products but also some generic waste categories uh so for instance while you can scan the barcode of a specific Coca-Cola can you cannot scan the barcode of a battery because uh on the the final product there often is no barcode applied so this uh allowing users to actually search for certain terms closes this Gap and and widens the Spectra of potential um used or or searched for disposal schemes when launching the service is was very nicely um received by the media because people considered it as a service and not so much um as a marketing tool by the underlying Brands and uh we actually went live with it uh in early 2023 due to a change in the collection scheme for a variety of Packaging typ so we used to have a very municip municipality based system and uh there were harmonizations applied but this meant that for a lot of people the way they were collecting their garbage was changing and this was the moment when we said uh we have to apply product and location specific information to address this when thinking of glass there is another uh benefit that digital tools can offer name mely since you’re providing product specific data you can really incorporate the specifics of a product so let’s just think of the metal screw cap uh normally the recommendation recommendation by many systems is to actually remove it before throwing the for instance wine bottle into the glass container of course uh modern um glass sorting Machinery is usually able to um use use uh magnetic forces in order to remove these impurities but there is the risk that in the screw cap there can be uh parts of the glass when the glass breaks um at the upper part of the the wine bottle for instance so while possible it’s not ideal and therefore the cap should uh be removed but for products looking quite similar from a consumer perspective where you have a deposit system so for a returnable glass bottle normally the opposite is true so that in order to protect the Fret um and to allow more uses of the bottle you will actually like the user to reapply the screw cap however this rule cannot be generalized because if you if you have a a screw cap as for most beer bottles for instance it’s again metal it’s again returnable but here it’s usually better to uh collect it separately um all this uh when following the discussion around the packaging and packaging waste regulation uh you might have noticed that there is an whole article that focuses on um consumer information namely that in the future as of uh probably depending on when it’s actually entering into Force but it will be around 2028 products must contain a label informing the consumer on how to dispose of it correctly and there is the option to enhance this with a QR code which shows additional information in some cases for instance if you have a multicountry packaging or if you have little space on the packaging it’s even recommended to use such a code because you can condense more into information and have do not have to use that much of the valuable packaging space that mostly marketeers would like to use for their purposes and um in the context of glass recycling this would give us the opportunity to use a R code which even without the in the installation of a web app or of an app by the consumer using a website people could directly access the information for their area on uh which different components for instance uh this champagne bottle is composed of and uh whether or not they should remove the metal parts or the compound plastic uh coverage that is around it and uh most importantly in my opinion you can use this to show the nearest collection point so for instance uh even if you’re in an Airbnb somewhere abroad where you might you’d love to recycle but uh I noticed from my own experience you can walk around with your glass bottles for quite a while if you don’t know where exactly the nearest bin is located so having addressed the barriers of a lack of information there can also be the case where people perfectly know how to do it but simply are too late dazy or believe it makes no sense to recycle since they don’t believe in in this being a clever material process but rather a commercial trick by the manufacturers to save some money and uh where this extra mile is needed uh we came up with an incentive system which basically in a nutshell works like this somehow the products are identified using either uh extra codes for instance with unique uh codes or using the existing barcodes um then they are sold in the shop of course it’s helpful if the retailer is supporting recycling in initiatives like uh the ones that I will present in a second but it’s not necessarily needed to activate the product or doing something like this and uh then when the consumer is scanning the correct item and proves that he’s at the right recycling point something positive happens this can be let’s just call it a reward but it can can also be the participation in in a lottery or or something else to this is not only happening for instance to to packaging but in our opinion wherever there is a waste stream where collection rates are too low it’s helpful um to use digital incentives in order to educate people and I think the important thing is you don’t have to do this for years but once you told a person for a single time time I don’t know let’s uh let’s look at for instance coffee capsules or lithium batteries which are two waste streams we also covered next to uh drink containers or recently even car tires uh once you have learned this a single time it’s quite likely that you will adopt this Behavior even for future times where there might even no no incentive be paid any longer um to sum it up in a nutshell uh I think the the mar costs for recycling or the the effort that a consumer has to take should be as low as possible because it’s not something that people or some people love it but to be honest the majority probably sees it as a necessary burden of their daily life so we should try to make it as easy as possible a lot of uh levers can be touched but in my opinion digitization is one of the easiest ones and most cost-efficient ones that uh you can use to address this topic and uh with our experience I think we can just encourage everyone out there um to see it as a potential option to increase their collection rates with the packaging and packaging waste regulation producers or those selling the products will be forced um to apply icons showing the users where to recycle they can however um in some cases opt for a QR code instead of these icons especially if space is limited and given that there are quite a few um data points that in the future will need to be communicated um my expectation is that quite a few producers will actually go for the QR solution um since it allows them to bring more context specific information um for those being willing to basically scan the code this used to be a quite tiny fraction to be honest like three years ago no one was scanning uh QR codes with the Advent of Corona or the the covid pandemic I think this has changed a lot and if you nowadays look um at many service processes then quite a few of them actually rely on QR codes phones can read them without the need to install extra software this has also changed while you needed a QR read in the past you do not need it any more when you currently buy a phone and as such uh I I think if Brands manage to provide meaningful information and in my opinion to to come back to to the holiday example so you’re you’re cooking yourself some spaghetti in Rome and um then you’re having this uh Sugo glass uh container and well you want to do it right uh then I think the relevant information would not be that it’s glass because that that’s the the must but those standing out will probably provide you the information glass in this country is collected there’s I don’t know white and uh and colored glass or even Brown glass uh and this one is actually transparent glass so the next container is 250 M on your left and that’s where you should bring it to I think when setting up such a system uh you will need data on products you will need data on collection points and in the long run as a kind of third uh critical mass you will need users otherwise people won’t feed your system with with data for the other two and uh our learning was that uh for consumers um they are um actually not will L to have 10 different apps or websites to recover this information for Batteries glass uh coffee capsules and so on uh as mentioned it’s already quite some hassle to do recycling so if it doesn’t come handy and simple um I’m I’m skeptical that people will use it so our approach was always to have a cross uh product a multi-brand platform and not a proprietary platform for a single producer to make it more relevant for users because they don’t stick to a single producer um either so we are actually financing our services um by the help of uh fmcg Brands and retailers who at the moment driven by the desire to go the extra mile and not so much by the legal requirements which will come uh in the next years um said that they think for their products it makes sense to be included in such a guide uh they’re paying us uh roughly a few thousand EUR per year uh which mostly go into the work of classifying the products and maintaining um the database of course it would also be possible for someone to do this on their own um I think the the critical cost factor in This was um knowing about the infrastructure and our hard learning was that this is quite diverse so even when you might think that glass looks quite simple well there’s returnable glass and there’s single- Ed glass packaging um for some perfumes it would it’s not possible to remove um the applicators for others it’s doable and should be done in know order to increase Purity and uh last but not least even for glass it can be brown green and white they might be different some collect it all together some split it um and uh even what it’s collected in in in curbside which is rather rare but mostly in in bring systems but this can be either just at Lo local recycling centers or um at at at popular streets and so on so um accessing and grasping this diversity for variety of packaging materials and other waste was the big challenge that we have been confronted with and are now actually in in in a more relaxed position to say that the majority of this is solved and now it’s time to actually use this in more countries and regions uh in order to make it more effective for the end consumer um and that’s actually currently also our aim to expand to to more countries and there is ongoing process in this uh regard um since we actually see the additional value of of gaining CrossCountry coverage um for one at the same packaging because packaging two are often sold in several countries but even if they’re just sold in one countes people might import them uh somewhere else so that this information can be relevant um on for the on Theo on the-go consumption especially