Hi everyone! As Earth Day is approaching I wanted to share these “BioBoxes” that are located in several places in Mexico City.
One day I was walking and spotted some kind of vending machine but it looked different and I discovered that it was a recycling collection point for plastic bottles and decided to take a closer look and to use it you had to download an app so I decided to do it, I was really curious about it.
Ok, that “day” was years ago and I have even deleted the app because I have never opened it again, until this week that I forgot my reusable bottle, and I needed some water, so it was a great moment to download it again and recycle my bottle! I want to share with you my experience with these BioBox:
In the app you can locate the collection boxes all over Mexico City and if you tap on a pin it will open Maps app with the coordinates (I have added some of them to Google Maps) and also you need to have a bottle (obviously, right? hahaha).
These BioBoxes can only collect PET bottles, aluminum cans and coffee pods; it specifies that it doesn’t accept bottles with liquid, without barcode, crushed bottles and cans, glass bottles and cups.
When you are in front of the BioBox you can select the option “Recycle Now” in the app and it will open a QR scanner so the box identifies your user, before you scan the QR code check if it is not some sticker that someone placed over the original one, just to avoid quishing, then you have to scan the bottle barcode and it will open the container, once you placed the bottle inside the container will close and it will light up with green LEDs and you’ll be awarded with a point!
What can I do with those points? You may ask, well, you can use them in 3 main options:
- Get benefits with points: these are coupons for businesses of different categories: Restaurants, Travel, Entertainment, Food & Drink and Health. For example, you can redeem 15 points for a coupon in movie theatres and have a -25% discount on your ticket price, not bad at all.
- Get benefits with Spin card: You can exchange your BioBox points for Spin points, Spin is a loyalty program of convenience stores in Mexico…owned by Coca-Cola.
- Prepaid Mobile Phone credits
Have you ever seen a machine like these?
I think it’s cool that this kind of option exists and they motivate people to recycle, they could be “improved" by placing the container in a lower height so kids and wheelchair users can put bottles in a comfortable way, but it also led me to think about whether it’s really worth having so many of these machines consuming energy and resources with their LED displays running all day. These machines increase the bottle’s carbon footprint when a simple container with a sign could do the same and it should be the bottle brands responsibility to collect the garbage that their products generate, if you ask me.
What kind of creative ways have you seen to make people recycle their garbage?
Thanks for reading, Happy Earth Day and don’t forget your reusable water bottles!
Me acuerdo de chica que habia unas mucho menos tecnológicas en los supermercados, espero que estas lleguen acá y a todo el mundo así la gente deja de dejar botellas en cualquier lado. Estas o las que te dan centavos como las de Europa, con cualquier motivación para que las personas tiren su basura me conformo jajaja
