Bag It for the Planet and be Rewarded!!!

A recycling bags campaign promoted by companies to stimulate recycling at home and be rewarded at the same time

Explain your idea in one sentence

Companies promote recycling by providing the recycling bags and rewarding customers for classifying the recycling materials and taking them to collection centres.

Jim, has just heard from a friend that Company X (the promoter) is running a recycling campaign where he could be rewarded if he decides to participate. He only needs to go his local major supermarket where the promoter is distributing the recycling bags kits for free; three coloured bags that he can take home and start filling them up with the three different recycling materials (plastic, paper and glass). At the end of the week the bags are full and Jim takes them to the collection centre ran by the promoter which is next to the local supermarket. Jim scored in this delivery 3 Kgs of paper, 4.5 Kgs of glass, and 1.4 Kgs of plastic.  The collaborator in the collection centre registers Jim’s result in the collection centre system and record them to Jim’s account. Jim gets a $5 discount card from the promoter for his contribution.

Jim starts calculating how much he could make in a year if he constantly recycles at home and take the disposed materials to the collection centre. A $260 savings a year sounds great to Jim and he decided to keep doing it week after week. What is more, Jim feels so motivated that he decided to invite others to join the “Bag it for the Planet and get rewarded campaign” and others start to participate in the campaign.

Jessica heard from Jim about the campaign, she can’t participate because she is overseas, but helps Jim to spread the word through social media about the promoters initiative and she contacted some friends to motivate them to participate.

At the end of the campaign, which this promoter decided to run it for 16 weeks, Jim totalled 43 Kgs of paper, 88 Kgs of glass   and 37 Kgs of plastic. These results put Jim among the top 100 recyclers in the glass category and he is entitled to a special price from the promoter, perhaps a $30 discount card that could be used in his local supermarket.

Now that the campaign is over, Jim has kept the recycling bags and wants to keep recycling, the messages and learnings from the campaign have made Jim conscious of his responsibility in the recycling process and the positive impact it has on our planet so he keeps recycling after the campaign.

I believe that there is a jointed social responsibility in the recycling process. Companies and Customers are mutually responsible for constructing a sustainable planet for the generations to come. Companies, being at the beginning of the production process of biodegradable and/or non-biodegradable materials to produce its goods, should be responsible for promoting and support recycling at home.

A recycling bags campaign promoted by companies that stimulates the public to classify and recycle different recycling materials is the idea proposed. Initially the company will distribute the recycling bags pack which will contain 3 different coloured bags, one for each recycling material:plastic, glass and paper.

The customers takes home these three bags and start classifying the disposed recycling materials. Once the bags are at capacity, the customers can take them to identified collection centres. In the collection centre the customer will be identified and rewarded for their contribution. The reward could be either monetary on in a form of a rebate voucher that could be used for discounts on products of the promoting company. It is important that also, at this stage, the amount (weight) of the contribution is registered and allocated to the individual customer. At the end of the year, the first top 100 contributors in terms of weight by category, plastic, glass and paper could be rewarded with special prizes.

This idea might succeed because it will be started as a campaign where word of mouth will help spread the idea among the community. Since there are prizes and incentives involved, there will be motivation for people to participate. Also the general public will have the opportunity to be involved in the social responsibility programs of the companies promoting the campaign. Also, the social impact could be easily measured in terms of amount of recycled materials and in financials terms.

The idea is that this campaign is ran once a year. There is huge potential to form partnerships and alliances among Companies so the campaign could be ran all year long. For example, from January to April the campaign is ran by Company X, then from May to August by Company Y and finally from September to December by company Z. By running the campaign this way, the costs associated to the recycling process such as ( administering the collection centre, recycling bags kits, marketing, rewards) are shared among the business community and at the same time the general public will have the opportunity to participate all year round if they chose to.    

 

Describe how your idea would help form new habits and improve recycling at home

The campaign will help families to build and maintain a recycling culture at home by providing the classifying bags and delivering reports to them as to how much have they contributed to the planet because of their efforts.

How might you design an early, lightweight experiment to further develop your idea?

A local supermarket with a small collection centre could be initially chosen to run a pilot campaign to measure the receptivity and level of participation of the general public.

What aspects of your idea could benefit from the input of our OpenIDEO community?

Segregation of different recycling materials