Feb. 10, 2022
In the past few years, special ticket machines have been installed in Beijing's subway stations. As a way to raise awareness of plastic recycling, these machines accept used water bottles as a form of payment. These are "reverse" vending machines. The PET bottles collected by the machines can be recycled to make new bottles, rather than sending the waste to landfills.
Once in the recycling machine, the bottles are first scanned in order to calculate their value based on the quality and quantity of the plastic (each bottle is estimated to be worth between 5 and 15 cents). In return, the machines issue public transportation credits or extra cell phone airtime. Most of them are located in high-traffic or tourist destinations, such as the Temple of Heaven, where up to 60,000 people pass by daily.
Some primary and secondary schools in Beijing have acquired "reverse" vending machines to pay for coins and stationery in exchange for empty bottles or used books as part of a promotion of recycling.
Thousands of "reverse" vending machines have been placed in schools to ensure that school waste is recycled and to avoid secondary contamination when it ends up in illegal underground workshops.
More than a million students have benefited from the program and have developed the habit of separating their waste for recycling.
Reverse vending machines work in the opposite way to traditional vending machines. The process begins with students feeding used bottles or books into the machine, which uses an imaging camera to identify the items, then compacts and sorts them into bins.
Users are rewarded with pencils or coins, or can donate them to needy children in rural areas.
Countries such as Japan and Brazil have been using these machines for years, and they have been well received.
Reverse vending machines have also been well received by many elementary and middle school students. Trading in an empty bottle for a new pencil is both fun and worthwhile.
Experts say the widespread use of the machines is credited with promoting recycling, which has been poor for the past few decades.
Reverse vending machines recognize the type of bottle being recycled and offer rewards commensurate with the type of bottle and the number of bottles fed into the machine.
The Beijing government says the city already recycles about 15,000 tons of plastic bottles a year, but expects the number of reverse vending machines to "increase exponentially. Some of the new recycling machines are located near major tourist destinations such as the Temple of Heaven, where up to 60,000 people may pass through the reverse vending machines each day. Tourists and others who may not be interested in transit passes or phone card rebates will still be able to put plastic bottles into the machines.
INCOM, the manufacturer of the "reverse" vending machines, will also collect electronic waste in the future.
Placing these machines throughout the city will benefit the city's circular economy in the long run.
Authorities say the machines could later be placed in shopping areas, universities and research institutes, and neighborhoods.
