Beijing introduces recycling banks that pay subway credits for bottles

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/04/beijing-recycling-banks-subway-bottles


People sort out empty plastic bottles at a recycling centre in Changping district on the outskirts of Beijing. Photograph: How Hwee Young/EPA


Beijing's vast army of plastic-bottle scavengers will get an automated rival later this month, when the city introduces its first reverse vending machines that pay subway credits in exchange for returned containers.

More than 100 recycle-to-ride devices will be installed in an attempt to reduce the environmental impact of the informal bottle collection business and improve the profits of the operator, which works in an industry thought to be worth billions of dollars.

Donors will receive between 5 fen and 1 mao (about 1p) on their commuter passes for each polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle they insert into the machine, which then crushes them to a third of their original size and sorts them according to colour and type.

"It will be as easy to use as an ATM," said an employee of the operating company, Incom, who declined to give her name. "We hope to put one at every station on the route [subway line 10] and later expand to other lines, bus stops and residential areas."